talking points that piss you off

[k-onmmunist]

"The Royal Family pays for itself."

"The Royal Family bring a lot of tourist money into this country"

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Any politician who compares the economy to one household deserves to be stretched on the rack.

^^^

This is a good one.

[Phony Moderate]

"Homophobia is the same thing as racism"

Wait wait what ?

How is homophobia different than racism exactly ?

I suppose homophobia is different to racism, in the same way that antisemitism is different to racism.

[Boris]

"iran wants to wipe israel off the map." this has been debunked so many times, not to mention it makes no logical sense. why would iran want to fire a nuke at a country with hundreds of them that is unconditionally supported by the us. use your head.

Jmfcst used to argue that they believed in some crazy Islamic prophecy and that anyone who disagreed simply does not understand religion

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

"Just because I oppose someone's right to marry doesn't mean I oppose equality under the law or anything."

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

"Just because I oppose someone's right to marry doesn't mean I oppose equality under the law or anything."

Speaking of which: "Gays are just looking for special rights" and "You have the right to marry someone of the opposite sex!" Homophobes in general just piss me off.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

"Just because I oppose someone's right to marry doesn't mean I oppose equality under the law or anything."

Speaking of which: "Gays are just looking for special rights" and "You have the right to marry someone of the opposite sex!" Homophobes in general just piss me off.

Ah yes, my two favorite strawmen.

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

"Homophobia is the same thing as racism"

Wait wait what ?

How is homophobia different than racism exactly ?

Um, one is basically pre-judging or hating a race of people who just happen to be of a differently ethnicity. Another is a natural feeling of unease at abnormal sexual attractions.

To me, their are black people and white people. I don't recognize 'gay people' as a group, I recognize that certain people have abnormal sexual attractions, but that's doesn't make them a special group to me, no matter what the particular attraction may be.

There is nothing biologcally 'off' about people born of a different race, it is part of the identity. Abnormal sexual attraction is obviously biologically 'off' since it has no natural purpose. Therefore, feeling uncomfortable towards it is natural, and for alot of people probably would not fade with more exposure like racism.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

particularly annoying talking points:

-"clinton reduced the debt." no president has reduced the debt in my lifetime, this isn't hard to google either. what happened was congress stole money from social security (as usual) and that resulted in the deficit going down a bit for awhile. and then they kept borrowing from it but still managed to run massive deficits under bush.

Actually even taking into account the money borrowed from social security, there was a surplus in 1999 and 2000.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

"Homophobia is the same thing as racism"

Wait wait what ?

How is homophobia different than racism exactly ?

Um, one is basically pre-judging or hating a race of people who just happen to be of a differently ethnicity. Another is a natural feeling of unease at abnormal sexual attractions.

To me, their are black people and white people. I don't recognize 'gay people' as a group, I recognize that certain people have abnormal sexual attractions, but that's doesn't make them a special group to me, no matter what the particular attraction may be.

There is nothing biologcally 'off' about people born of a different race, it is part of the identity. Abnormal sexual attraction is obviously biologically 'off' since it has no natural purpose. Therefore, feeling uncomfortable towards it is natural, and for alot of people probably would not fade with more exposure like racism.

Basically you're implying that everyone who is not born with the same orientation as the 'average person' is somehow not natural or what you self-righteously deem 'abnormal'.

You really don't have any idea what you're talking about if you think homosexuality can be classified as merely a fetish.

[argentarius]

If we lower x tax rate and make up for it with spending cuts, a billion jobs will be created, and vice versa. Complete ignorance of economics and they're all knowingly guilty of it.

[Antonio the Sixth]

"Homophobia is the same thing as racism"

Wait wait what ?

How is homophobia different than racism exactly ?

Um, one is basically pre-judging or hating a race of people who just happen to be of a differently ethnicity. Another is a natural feeling of unease at abnormal sexual attractions.

To me, their are black people and white people. I don't recognize 'gay people' as a group, I recognize that certain people have abnormal sexual attractions, but that's doesn't make them a special group to me, no matter what the particular attraction may be.

There is nothing biologcally 'off' about people born of a different race, it is part of the identity. Abnormal sexual attraction is obviously biologically 'off' since it has no natural purpose. Therefore, feeling uncomfortable towards it is natural, and for alot of people probably would not fade with more exposure like racism.

"A natural feeling of unease" is not homophobia, as long as you keep your unease for yourself and don't translate it into hatred toward a category of people. In which case you are just a bigoted bastard morally equal to a racist.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

"Homophobia is the same thing as racism"

Wait wait what ?

How is homophobia different than racism exactly ?

Um, one is basically pre-judging or hating a race of people who just happen to be of a differently ethnicity. Another is a natural feeling of unease at abnormal sexual attractions.

To me, their are black people and white people. I don't recognize 'gay people' as a group, I recognize that certain people have abnormal sexual attractions, but that's doesn't make them a special group to me, no matter what the particular attraction may be.

There is nothing biologcally 'off' about people born of a different race, it is part of the identity. Abnormal sexual attraction is obviously biologically 'off' since it has no natural purpose. Therefore, feeling uncomfortable towards it is natural, and for alot of people probably would not fade with more exposure like racism.

I'm not even going to get into the inherently fallacious nature of the way you're using the word 'natural', but it's completely false that same-sex behavior has no 'natural' purpose, unless you're one of those special 'selfish gene' types who think that teleology in nature is limited to the direct transmission of alleles. In species that engage in same-sex behavior it's been observed to:

Enhance social bonding, particularly between males, sometimes in situations where the usual alternative would be conflict (it's also been used for this in human societies)
Trigger parthenogenesis in some species (not applicable to humans)
Limit population growth (arguably not applicable to humans)
Establish hierarchies (it's also been used for this in human societies)

And more!

Of course, the simple fact which none of this changes is that in humans it's characterized by exactly the same sorts of feelings of love that you, if you are indeed heterosexual, presumably have or can imagine yourself feeling towards a woman, and since there's no abuse that can come of it that's inherent to the groups being discussed (as with, say, pedophilia and at the very least most incest), there's no legal reason to treat it any differently, even if it's morally marginally more complicated than that. The state's job isn't to put its citizens out to stud.


ETA: I should clarify that there are obviously purposes and significance in life beyond the sexual, in case my use of the word 'teleology' above was confusing about this point. I don't, intellectually, make a great gulf of separation between one's sexuality and the rest of their life, even though in my personal life sexuality is next to nonexistent; so even if we're not centering sex I don't think it's terribly helpful to decenter it quite to the extent that we would have to if we were selecting groups of people for whom to treat it separately from their emotional lives on the basis of real or perceived gender differences. TJ rightly pointed out that I wasn't terribly clear on this point, and I'm afraid I'm still not, but if I were to fully address what he brought up it would take a while and I might have to start my whole argument over again.

[TJ in Oregon]

Or if one believes the teleology of sex acts is for procreation. I wouldn't be so sex-centered as to claim there is no more to teleology than just sex.

[freefair]

Any politician who compares the economy to one household deserves to be stretched on the rack.

^^^

This is a good one.

Dig at Thatcher? Why is it so wrong? IMHO, Macroeconomics isn't really very different from Micro, Keynes was innaccurate to say they are unconflateable, and that really was poor mathematics.

Also , people that don't accept the laffer curve as correct get my goat. We can legitimately debate where the maximum point is, but don't pretend near 0 or 100% income tax would generate revenue

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Social  Security Trust Fund.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Did someone mention the GOP War on Women? 

[k-onmmunist]

Any politician who compares the economy to one household deserves to be stretched on the rack.

^^^

This is a good one.

Dig at Thatcher? Why is it so wrong? IMHO, Macroeconomics isn't really very different from Micro, Keynes was innaccurate to say they are unconflateable, and that really was poor mathematics.

Also , people that don't accept the laffer curve as correct get my goat. We can legitimately debate where the maximum point is, but don't pretend near 0 or 100% income tax would generate revenue

So the whole 95% tax rate we had from 1945-1973... it generated no revenue at all?

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Or if one believes the teleology of sex acts is for procreation. I wouldn't be so sex-centered as to claim there is no more to teleology than just sex.

That's why I specified teleology in nature (the all-too-common construction of 'nature' as something that doesn't include human civilization and exists essentially as a proving ground for the life sciences, which is the opposite extreme to the naturalistic fallacy and not entirely unrelated to it), but you do of course raise a legitimate point. I wouldn't claim that either. I'll edit the initial post to make this clearer.

[Torie]

The word "investing" replacing "spending" when it comes to government expenditures. Most of them have nothing to do with "investing" as I understand the concept from my days studying finance. They just don't.

[freefair]

So the whole 95% tax rate we had from 1945-1973... it generated no revenue at all?

Pretty much. Tens of Thousands of wealthy people and celebrities moved abroad. When the top rate was cut to 60%, revenue more than doubled.
Don't forget, Taxman by the Beatles was a protest against that exact policy.. "Should 5 percent appear to small".

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Of course VAT was raised through the roof at the same time income tax for the rich was cut, totally changing the social balance of taxation (for want of a better way of putting it).

[bore]

Any politician who compares the economy to one household deserves to be stretched on the rack.

^^^

This is a good one.

Dig at Thatcher? Why is it so wrong? IMHO, Macroeconomics isn't really very different from Micro, Keynes was innaccurate to say they are unconflateable, and that really was poor mathematics.

There is just one household so it can do whatever it wants but the economy has many different parts so something which is sensible for one party may hurt another. Meaning comparing them is ludicrous as they are completely different and need different approaches.

[Insula Dei]

Noone on here would recognize the ones that really get on my hips.

[Beet]

Any politician who compares the economy to one household deserves to be stretched on the rack.

^^^

This is a good one.

Dig at Thatcher? Why is it so wrong?

.

Did Thatcher really originate this type of analogy? It's wrong for an infinite number of reasons. Take the common plea for "belt tightening." When households "tighten their belts" by spending less, the net effect is that their financial situation improves, because the same amount of income is coming in, whereas less money is going out. To use the analogy of American football, they are playing the same offense, but now they have a better defense.

But when governments "tighten their belts" by spending less, the net effect on their financial situation is unclear, because whereas less money is being spent, less money may also come in as a consequence. This is because the government's income (revenue) is endogenous to the same system that is effected by the government's spending. If there is a rise in unemployment, and a decline in consumer spending and investment, than revenue will fall. By the same token, government revenue is affected by all sorts of private sector events, such as banking crises, property values, the money supply, price fluctuations, and the like. The government, by spending money, can influence the direction of these movements. There is no clear household equivalent without engaging in some not-so-intuitive gymnastics.