The Al Realpolitik Institute of Sulfur Mining & Extraction

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Only if I can reopen my old update thread too

That would be like if BushOK opened up a five-star restaurant, where the world's best chefs prepare the world's finest cuisine, and then you decide to open up a McDonald's across the street.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Joe has five dollars and spends five dollars.  Bob has five dollars and spends four dollars.  Bob has infinity more wealth than Joe.  This is not a problem.

That analogy is so unrepresentative and mind-numbingly idiotic it's impossible to really even begin to refute it. It's kind of better just to let its inanity and illogic stand on its own.

[Paul Kemp]

Joe has five dollars and spends five dollars.  Bob has five dollars and spends four dollars.  Bob has infinity more wealth than Joe.  This is not a problem.

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No, I still don't get what brilliant argument you think you're making.

I start to suspect that you're actually a troll who has been trying desperately for years to make libertarianism look bad online. Every night you fall asleep crying because the Paulbots will agree with even the most moronic things you post. You have started to despair about humanity. When you saw this thread you knew that the time had come to make a post that would stand the tooth of Time as a tribute to the idiocy of 'libertarianism', a post that even your average internet libertarian would shy away from while clawing at his eyes and screaming for mercy. A post that would defy the very rules of logic and language, going beyond that what the human mind has been created to capture.

I must say, in just two lines you must just about have managed to create such a masterpiece. I stand in awe.

[Paul Kemp]

He's hailed as this hero because he was the first white English man to discover America.

Learn something new every day.

It was an otherwise great point that was ruined by a heroic gaffe.  This is something I've seen 20RP12 do before... boldly and forcefully stating factually incorrect information.   A few days ago we had this little exchange.

It is a FACT that a majority of black teens in America listen to rap and hiphop. There's not many white kids at Lil Wayne or 50 Cent concerts.

I just wanted to say that the data I've seen seems to indicate the majority (60-80%) of hip hop album sales are to white consumers

For some reason two seconds on the Google machine is two seconds some posters cannot spare.

[King]

"Heroic gaffe." I like the term.

Is there any doubt this guy is Einzige?

[minionofmidas]

"Heroic gaffe." I like the term.

Is there any doubt this guy is Einzige?

Kshhh.

[Paul Kemp]

Not really an "ohh snap" but a good rebuttal:

Still, your thread title is misleading boss.  Be honest.  It's muckraking, and you have no evidence, only conjecture, that Obama wanted to apologize for nuking them. 

well, unless you think Japan just brought the subject up out of the blue (which would be highly presumptuous), what other conclusion is there?

Well, I started googling, and found a Fox News report that the White House released a press statement today that said Obama never had any intention of doing this.

How well do you know Mitoji Yabunaka?  Who can say why he sent such a cable?  Maybe somebody in the White House simply floated the idea of a visit.  You know, for old time's sake.  And Yabunaka-san just wrote back to say not to do it, adding on his own that an apology wouldn't be in order at this time.  It's quite possible.  We're a strange people in that regard.  Americans are always "Demanding an apology!" or, worse, giving one.  I imagine our nation's real First Black President never owned a slave in his life, but that didn't stop Bubba from apologizing for slavery.  It's a quirk of our culture, somehow, that we have become apologists for everything, and probably foreigners just think of as one of our weird ways.  So when the Obama cabinet member calls up Yabunaka-san and inquires about the possibility of a visit, Yabunaka=san assumes that Obama-san is planning to come to say Me so sorry for bomb.  And Yabunaka-san writes Obama-san and says, "Don't do.  We have enough probrem with China."  Or maybe Hillary just threw it out there and it got around to Yabunaka-san.  I don't know. 

But neither do you. 

[Lief 🗽]

That's one of the most racist comments I have read.

If that's the case then you have lived a blissfully sheltered life.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The wheel turns, does it not?

Yes, a wheel does turn. Very good! I'm proud of you. It is such a rewarding experience watching kids discover how things work in the real world. To be young and curious. Those were the days.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The wheel turns, does it not?

Yes, a wheel does turn. Very good! I'm proud of you. It is such a rewarding experience watching kids discover how things work in the real world. To be young and curious. Those were the days.

Beautiful.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Never refer to this as a mine again, caveman.

Don't they live in caves on Sicily?

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Bores, bores, go away, bother your betters another day..

I think you need to get thicker skin. Adoration from a bunch of mildly retarded boys half your age whom you've never met shouldn't be this important to your self-esteem.

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Bores, bores, go away, bother your betters another day..

I think you need to get thicker skin. Adoration from a bunch of mildly retarded boys half your age whom you've never met shouldn't be this important to your self-esteem.

Damn! I felt that burn.

[opebo]

I think you need to get thicker skin. Adoration from a bunch of mildly retarded boys half your age whom you've never met shouldn't be this important to your self-esteem.

Damn! I felt that burn.

I didn't at all, must be thick-skinned.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'm really curious why the disagree people disagree with the quote. It seems pretty sound to me.

Even if its assumptions were true, it obviously is using circular logic.  Of course, its assumptions aren't true, the hypothetical individual could simply start their own farm on unoccupied land and grow enough food to eat.  That is problematic in the US since the state has declared itself the owner of all unoccupied land, but you can see that's still circular logic.  In fact, land isn't even required, modern hydroponic technology is more than sufficient to produce enough food for a person on a very small footprint, but then you get the Feds knocking on your door because they think you're growing dope.  Again, circular logic.  And all of this is without even considering the fact that there's no such thing as "Obama's stash," for the state to giveth it must taketh away in higher quantities since it has to pay all its precious "administrators" at a higher priority than the supposedly highest-priority, supposedly otherwise starving people.

But, of course, Leafy here is so brilliant he must've figured all that out beforehand.

Uhh are libertarians really this far off in the loony land?

I am opposed to law, which is the opposite of civilization. -Wormyguy

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

You are not a patient of a procedure. You are a consumer of a procedure. You are not a patient of a diagnostic test. You are a consumer of a diagnostic test.

That argument doesn't help Wonkish... because he is no longer a patient of stupid.  He is a willing consumer of stupid.

[Mechaman]

Now that I've got the right thread for this......

Retarded douche.

But what a douche baggish sig you have there too.

That would be a nice comeback, except that as far as I know Dalton McGuinty didn't murder his political opponents, arrange for his opponents to be dumped off planes in the ocean, arrange for his opponents to be assassinated abroad by hit squads, throw all his opponents in jail and tortured them to death. So, yeah, try to find a better comeback or at least a comeback which is at least somewhat intellectually honest. But yeah, I don't expect better from somebody who's dumb or demented enough to have pictures of genocidal bastards like Milosevic or Pinochet in his sigs.

Try again I know you can do it

[Antonio the Sixth]

Spade makes much more sense when he doesn't call people f****ts.

And no, I don't really care about a fetus' life, honestly. Yes, I think a fetus is a living being, but not a self-aware human being. As long as it doesn't even feel pain, I don't really mind killing it. Of course killing a living being is always a bad thing, but don't we kill animals to eat them, or to make scientific experiences ? Yes, a fetus is a life, but not yet a human being. It deserves some dignity, but not the same we give to full human beings.

And what of the severely mentally handicapped? Are they full human beings? And if they aren't, then should they have less rights than the rest of us? And to what place does that lead us?

I think in general that it's better not to philosophise too much over issues like this. Better to accept the necessity of imperfect and necessarily contradictory compromise.

Depending on how you define "full human being" I would say no.  Frankly we shouldn't pour valuable resources into keeping the severely mentally handicapped alive while entire families are having their homes foreclosed on and being tossed out into the street.  Our priorities in America are completely nonsensical.  I've seen severely mentally handicapped people that don't move, don't speak, who can't even feed themselves be admitted to the hospital time after time and have all kinds of interventions done to prolong their lives.  All at the tax payers expense.  If I were to have severe dementia and a stroke I wouldn't want people to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to prolong my "life."

The hundreds of thousands of dollar that were used to prolong the "life" of Terri Schiavo were a complete waste.

Frankly I think all Down syndrome babies should be aborted.

Depending on how you define "full human being" I would say no.  Frankly we shouldn't pour valuable resources into keeping the blacks alive while entire families are having their homes foreclosed on and being tossed out into the street.  Our priorities in America are completely nonsensical.  I've seen black people that don't move, don't speak, who can't even feed themselves be given taxpayer money time after time and have all kinds of interventions done to prolong their lives.  All at the tax payers expense.  If I were to waste money on sneakers and blow, I wouldn't want people to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to prolong my "life."

The hundreds of thousands of dollar that were used to prolong the "life" of a black like Linda Taylor were a complete waste.

Frankly I think all black babies should be aborted.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

I don't see what the problem would be. They're in private jails; it's the free market at work!

[opebo]

Pretty much everytime Gustaf responds to opebo.

Boredom doesn't burn, Dead0.  That requires wit, in which you and Gustaf share the same handicap.

[dead0man]

I don't see what the problem would be. They're in private jails; it's the free market at work!

Wrong thread.  Strawmen go in a different one.  Xahar knows where it is.

[Badger]

Just because you say it does not make it true. Nothing said before the age of 18 is true.

Nothing I say is true because I'm under 18? Okay.

You're a valuable poster and you make this forum so much more enjoyable.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I don't see how anyone can interpret him as actually saying there should be more terrorist attacks. He's merely making a point which is probably correct - if you deal with a problem too effectively people will stop considering it a problem.

Yeah, after a problem is gone people actually tend to care about different problems. It happens. Gingrich should deal with that reality.

[Oakvale]

So I suppose you're a Thatcherite on the coal mine issue?

The coal mine issue? What was 'the coal mine issue', exactly?

Well since you appear to believe that the taxation and spending policies of the Soviet Union were sound, I presume you either believe that central planning and/or state-owned enterprises were "the features that guaranteed eventual disaster," so presumably you either believe that coal mining should not be centrally planned or that it should be privatized.

Are you an irredeemable idiot for real or are you just pretending to be one for the purposes of trolling?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Got to love that liberal "tolerance."

That's "tolerance" I guess.

Here's the difference: Liberals are happily tolerant of people with different faiths, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, etc. Few leftists (outside conservative's imaginary strawmen) are tolerant of a$#holes.