Ok, this is BS.
- Thread starter knewsom
- Start date
Blue said:
You should consult with the Chinese Government on anti-union policy, I'm sure they could really give you some great advice on how to enact it here.
knewsom said:
Cognitive dissonance. Quite right. So, which Mitt are y?all gonna vote for?
The Mitt who has vowed to ?crack down on China? or the Mitt who made millions sending jobs to Bejing as ?a one-stop shop for all your outsourcing needs??
The Mitt who has promised to end loopholes for the wealthy or the Mitt who has millions stashed in off-shore tax havens like the Caymans, Bermuda, Lichtenstein and Switzerland?
The Mitt who opposed abortion for any reason, or the Mitt who now says he?s pro choice?
The Mitt who said he would not waste money and ?move heaven and earth to get bin Laden? nor would he violate Pakistan?s borders to do the same. Or the Mitt Romney who said ?of course I would have gotten bin Laden.?
The Mitt who has promised repeatedly to eliminate FEMA, or the Mitt - who was asked about FEMA in the wake of Hurricane Sandy just yesterday - and wouldn?t answer? Yes, Mitt really did say he wanted to get rid of FEMA and transfer all its functions (and costs) to the various states. (Does anyone think that a near bankrupt state like New Jersey can shoulder the immense costs of the recent hurricane alone?) But then in a 2011 editorial Mitt wrote that ?a big storm requires a big government.? So, which Mitt is it? Big government or small government?
The Mitt who promised to create 12 million new jobs or the Mitt who put thousands of people out of work by plundering over a hundred companies and making 250 million in the process through - and these are his words - ?creative destruction??
Mitt Romney has attacked the President about our failing education system. But here, he might have a point. We have graduated millions of people who are so lacking in basic analytical skills, they are considering voting for Mitt.
Which Mitt?
apg said:Blah blah blah... Which Mitt?
Dude. You're not going to change anyone's mind.
Do nothing without purpose. Do everything with purpose. You cannot change a person's nature. You can only illuminate the path upon which he travels.
Cheers,
Kennith
kennith said:
You've made the assumption that we are, in our very natures, very different. I do not believe this is the case, and I'm certainly not willing to make a whopper of an assumption like that. I can't speak for APG, but I myself discuss politics and the like with you lot largely because our differences baffle me. The times (though few) that we've boiled down to the heart of an issue and found common ground and came to some sort of mutual agreement have been incredibly satisfying. ...and all the other times have been interesting, at least.
APG, you're 100% correct about Mitt's flip-flopping. The fact that he's never been punished for it by anyone raises many questions in my mind. First and foremost, how the hell anyone is going to justify voting for him. He's a Republican John Kerry, but duller, richer, and a bigger hypocrite.
Mitt's never been punished by it? Even Rush Limbaugh was harsh on him this summer. Almost all of Obama's ads are about the flip-flops. Just the other day I was talking to a liberal friend of mine and I made it clear to him that I really don't know if Mitt has honestly changed his mind on these things, can't remember what he said before, or is just purposefully saying whatever it takes.
The only people I know who are excited about Mitt are people who don't remember GWB.
The only people I know who are excited about Mitt are people who don't remember GWB.
roverover said:
And that is the solid truth.
I teach the history of the unions to high school students, and I don't shy away from the problems with and without them. But the bottom line is there is a time and a place for everything, and unions have outlived the former and the latter. They have their purpose, to represent the workers to the bosses. Anything more is an overstepping of their bounds in the modern era.
kennith said:
You are quite right in that regard.... Indeed, that sounds like a Buddhist concept - and that's one of the reasons why I enjoy our exchanges. Most would just resort to ad hominem attacks - that is, against the person, not the person's arguments.
But it brings up another topic, and that is the one of bias. Even though there may be ample, credible evidence to the contrary, it is the aversion to accepting the possibility that one can be wrong. And if you are wrong about one thing, you might be wrong about many things. An existential problem, really.... It's particularly troubling if other (or all) aspects of one's life are built upon such a falsehood.
As I have asked many times here before, including on a concurrent thread, what GOP policy or program in the past dozen years has actually had an undeniably positive outcome? And even more troubling, what are the differences between the Republican party platform in 2000 and that of 2012? Though it has been attributed to the likes of Twain, Kipling and Einstein, the definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior yet somehow expecting a different outcome. The Republicans continue to double-down on ?trickle down?, but show me any example where that theory has actually worked. Prove me wrong. Go ahead?. But the Republican economic strategy stays the same: cut spending, cut taxes, which is exactly what Herbert Hoover did - and look how well that turned out.
Now if you still doubt the economic fallacy of the GOP, consider this. Karl Rove has praised European economic austerity, and SC Rep. Joe "you lie" Wilson has praised "the German miracle." Texas Rep. Ken Marchant said "Europe is already setting an example for the US." (Ummm...things gotta be pretty bad when a Texas Republican is calling for the US to follow those socialist Europeans. :rofl: ) Alabama Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said "We need a budget with bold vision, like those unveiled in Britain...and New Jersey."
Republicans are praising New Jersey? NJ ranked 47th in economic growth last year - which is just where Massachusetts was under Romney. NJ was 35th in employment growth when Chris Christie, one of the GOP's rising stars, took over; it's 48th now. Germany's economy is expected to expand under one percent this year, and Britain will contract. Karl, that's stagnation. Who wants that? While all industrialized nations experienced an economic downturn, America's economy is now the fastest growing amongst major countries in the west at over 2% according to the IMF. That Keynesian economic stimulus "experiment" certainly disproves the austerity of Germany, Britain, Hoover and the GOP.
Why support something that has been demonstrably proven not to work?
RBBailey said:
Schools must have really changed in Portland. A class just on Union History. Really? Sounds like loads of fun.
I still believe a union is good for teachers. Imagine if the principal had all the power to remove a teacher at any time. That would mean that the PTA would control your job. The PTA mafia is far more scarier if in fact the union did not exist. Those PTA woman are crazy scary. Would not want them on my bad side.
knewsom said:
Are we not different?
I am a fighter. That is, and has always been my way. In my every effort I am aggressive. That set me upon a certain path, and that path encouraged certain beliefs and behaviors.
While intelligent, I was not predisposed to the effort of learning, preferring instead to rely on observation and guile.
Calm was brought to me by discipline. Philosophy was brought to me by thought. Education was brought to me by effort. Patience was brought to me by experience.
Those are aspects that temper my nature, but they do not remove or change it. I am who I was, and who I will be. I am primitive; a fighter by nature, clothed in the finer garments of culture.
Are you the same?
I think we are all different at heart. We all have our own way, though we share them with others of like nature. For every fighter, however, there is a builder; a teacher, or otherwise different person.
Our elemental similarities arise from a collective instinct to cooperate. That's one of the defining characteristics of being human.
We learn of many paths, but we do not travel all of them. Logical debate can force agreement, but on dissected parts of the whole. Given adequate strategy, you might leave me with no option but to agree that this planet is the size of a marble.
That does not change my nature. It changes my perspective, and thus illuminates a different way to follow my own path. In order to accomplish that, one must agree to seek itemized truth in philosophical debate. That means passing beyond the "issues", to examine the fundamental truth.
That's just plain not going to happen here.
I speak my mind as it is, though, when it is. Sometimes my view changes a bit later, when I'm not so damned tired. I keep nodding off trying to type this.:rofl:
Cheers,
Kennith
RBBailey said:
I've got a liberal friend.
I've got a conservative friend.
I love the way it always comes out like "I've got a black friend":rofl:
Cheers,
Kennith
knewsom said:
Why would I bother to do that? I'm not the one with the cause here, you are. I think unions suck and that's that. The presence or absence of unions really has no bearing on my life.
You started this thread with a cause to champion. A boss is telling his employees the facts of life and THIS MUST STOP! LOL....sooner or later you'll have to learn the facts of life, my young idealist friend.
I just got an Email from our CEO encouraging us to vote. He went on further to say that Governor Romney's policies are more in tune with our business model.....blah blah blah.
I just had a fellow employee walk by, he is kinda pissed our CEO (as well as me) would encourage us to vote one way or another. I guess I am not pissed, but it does bother me.
I just had a fellow employee walk by, he is kinda pissed our CEO (as well as me) would encourage us to vote one way or another. I guess I am not pissed, but it does bother me.
jhk07 said:
It only bothers you because he encouraged you to vote differently than what you were planning on voting. Or it bothers you because you are uncomfortable when any person tries to encourage you to vote one way.
What all you guys are failing to realize is that these are their businesses. They can do whatever they want to as long as it falls within the laws that govern them. There is no problem or nothing illegal about a boss saying that his company will prosper more under one President than another. That makes sense so that the company employees are informed and don't get randomly laid off after they vote for a guy who claims he's the solution. The boss has no way of knowing who you vote for so it doesn't matter.
What you cannot do is use a public position or funding to campaign for one side only to have to cover your tracks by using personal or party money to cover expenses rather than public money after questions have been raised.
The real problem is that we have individuals here who are emotionally spun up about a private company being just that, private. They are not being run like the government or some crappy bureaucratic unionized mess. That's the real issue. Would Newsom have even posted this if some random underling who loves politics had emailed out the same message with the title "What Will Happen to the Company and My Job If We Don't Vote for Romney?". Same message, different messenger and suddenly it's ok, even though there is nothing that says it's wrong or illegal... except for liberal emotions.
Honestly I don't want to bicker about it, and I have not given it alot of thought, but I'm just gonna say maybe it could be considered unethical. But ones persons ethics is not anothers ................ I always thought voting was a private issue, where you did not have to feel coerced by another, or feel as though there would be repercussions if you did not vote a certain way. Either way BOHICA..... Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.mgreenspan said:
jhk07 said:
What's unethical about a boss saying one candidate's policies will result in X for our company? Saying he would fire anybody he finds out didn't vote for Romney would be unethical. Without seeing the email I can't say. Based off what you said, encouraging to vote then going on about how Romney's policies are in line with the company blah blah blah, I'd say that there is no problem.
jhk07 said:
I completely agree with you, but the fact is that we are constantly coerced by others and we are shown the vast and sweeping repercussions if we do not vote a certain way.....it's called the damn campaign and there have been about a billion dollars spent recently to coerce you and make you feel that there will be repercussions. BOHICA indeed!
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mgreenspan said:
Here is a real world example: I just found out that my company's health insurance premiums will be going up just under 19% in January. Guess what? We are dropping health insurance coverage...now it's every man for himself. That being said, I realize that I can't just delete a benefit without potential "repercussions" so I am going to increase the salary of all those eligible for the coverage by the current cost of that coverage. The employee can take that money and spend it on their own personal health insurance or they can spend it as they please. A perfect example of personal accountability. We're not talking major dollars here or a large number of covered employees but I run a business and this benefit cost is in real dollars that have a real effect on my business. I absorbed about a 16% increase this year vs. last and I'm done.
When the employees ask why, I will suggest that they ask the man currently in the driver's seat in the Oval Office. I don't have any control over who they vote for but you damn well better believe that I will empower my employees with facts and knowledge and perhaps they'll better understand how the world works and how things affect them personally. Knewsom, is this BS? Does someone have to make me STOP?