fauxlaw

I'm an ordinary American. my detailed complicated process [ambition, planning, execution] was taught to me by my Dad, another ordinary American. I put education at the top of my priorities as the first plan in my youth. I paid for my education with hard work, earning two PhDs. Every position I took increased my earning, and I increased within those positions, because I continued educating myself to prove my worth. I still do. I learned how to calculate my personal contribution to the bottom line, and could use that information to increase my salary. Who needs unions? Its so easy to learn, I taught my employees, who. then proved their worth to me. I didn't buy toys. I bought a house over 40 years ago, and subsequently three others and never sold the first, renting it out, until last year at a 1700% profit. I stopped working for the man 20 years ago, and I still work for me. I still don't have a lot of toys other people buy; I rent them. Works just fine. Not paying for them while not using them. I don 't buy a new car every three years. My current truck is 20 years old, still running fine, because I maintain it properly.  I learned to invest my money instead of spending it everywhere for everything. It's an ordinary process anyone can engage, but few do. It works. A pity more people don't know how easy it is. They're convinced they must work for money, and somehow, they're supposed to get rich that way. That's on them, entirely. If people cannot put their priorities in a proper order, that's somehow society's fault? Nope. They own it, themselves, and ought to accept the consequences, or do the right thing about it,  and stop mooching.

What do I have to admit? You're wrong, and the AWI demonstrates it. Sorry if you, personally, are not measuring up.  https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/AWI.html

Yes, the workforce is larger, thanks to Trump. That's a bad thing?

Wrong, again, until SloJoe, at least, since he's spending like a drunken sailor. https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/ 

Quick answer: already given: ambition, planning, execution. That is how one stops merely working for money and adding putting money to work for them. Stop buying toys on credit and invest in one's self. Then, the world of toys is open. One must have a goal of obtaining what I call airplane money. That is, earning enough to make enough to buy one, if that is one's wish. I'm not talking about a little one-engine Cessna.

We've had, at least until the advent of the Internet, a reasonable control against monopolies by law. Companies still try to engage it, but have been adequately managed to prevent them getting out of hand. Because of the nature of cyberspace, it's not as easy with internet companies, particularly when they band together with an agenda having nothing to do with the Internet business, per se, but the agenda does currently control it to prevent the free-flow of information, and that, curiously, goes against the very nature of why the Internet was created in the first place. Yes, more needs to be done legislatively to prohibit companies from taking that control, short of protection of intellectual property.

This is like having a glass half-full of water. One can argue all day that it's half-empty. So what? Stop arguing and drink. Eat the bloody hot dog and stop caring if it's a sandwich, or not. It will rot, otherwise, and be of no use to anybody.

What about monopolies? That they exist means nothing to me. They do not stop me. Sure, they represent an element of greed, but who ever said there is a ceiling to hte money supply? People who don't have it, that's who. And people, like Oba'a who have it and are jealous. He's wrong, and doesn't deter me.

This is flat wrong, and you are wrong to complain, because the truly fascinating secret, and a secret that anyone can realize by the attempt, is that there are things anyone can do to get out of a rut of believing capitalism does nothing for them:

1. Capitalism isn't supposed to do anything for you. Not on its own. You must act first; not it.

2. The individual must abandon thinking working for money will bring wealth. Put it to work for you. See #1.

3. The individual must acquire ambition, planning, and execution. Repeat. Do #1, do #2.

4. Acquire not just wealth, but a continuous revenue stream by engaging #1, 2, and 3.

That's what your YouTube is really telling you. Or, you can think it's all against you and do nothing. Your choice to make. Making no choice, maintaining the status quo, is the definition of insanity. And poverty.

If capitalism were exploitive, that would mean there is a ceiling to the money supply; once reached, there would be no more money to be had. Well, Oba'a taught that, but he was and is dead wrong. That is not the case. Capitalism encourages individual ambition, planning, and execution, 00and that, alone, allows the initiative for innovation which, itself, increases the money supply, which is infinite. The fact is, anyone using those three elements [ambition, planning, and execution] can succeed. Anyone. How is that exploitive? People do get there [acquire personal wealth] without them, but they both limit their potential, and they do pray on others in the process. That is not capitalism; that is pure greed. There is a difference, but too many see them as one in the same. Too bad; they don't get it, and will likely never get it [sustainable wealth] as a result.

What's your point? HB5 doesn't specify "evil" either, but does indicate a requirement to teach communism and totalitarianism:

Just because something is evil doesn't mean it should be stricken from instruction. Good to know about the enemy, yeah? Sun Tsu's Art of War was in my high school curriculum. As was Marx's Communist Manifesto and Chairman Mao's Little Red Book. People then were not afraid of stuff. Not like today. Today, we coddle our children. I had to tach my children this stuff, myself, and I did. I wanted them to know the face of the enemy.

The U.S. Chooses to be outside the jurisdiction of the Hague.

The struggle for racial equality ended, systematically, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which abolished all Jim Crow laws extant in the U.S., whether federal or state or local. It took a while for all jurisdictions to catch up [even the Court], but, effectively, systematically, they were no longer legal, and no jurisdiction could legally enforce them. Those that did were violating the law on individual bases, and still do. One of the problems is recognizing the difference between legislated statutes and procedural policies, the 'system', and how people, even in government, act individually, or even as groups of individuals. 

I'm not arguing that DeSantis did not say it. I'm arguing that your cited article did not quote him, but, instead, merely talked about it, and suggested that the legislation he signed also says it. As I pointed out, the two bills do nit even mention communism, or capitalism, either. Details matter in journalism, else it is merely opinion.

You mistake privilege for right. Citizenship is not a right since it comers with conditions; there are no conditions with true rights. Health care is not a right, either since it cannot by applied under all conditions. If health care were a right, everyone waiting for an organ transplant would have that organ available to them to have the needed transplant performed, but they don't. Health care is a privilege. And even rights have their limit, such as one claiming a right that intercedes in another's right. My right to throw my fist ends at your nose, and so on.

Yes I read your post. As for the negativity; nope. They're all positive. From whence do you see negative?

Which is exactly why I was banned on YouTube - in poetry about Christ. Such a controversial subject YouTube must protect little minds from reeading

Unique? Perhaps?  Do more research. This common theme is shared by over 20 religions around the world, including Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism,  Zoroastrianism, and Wiccan.

In fact, Norman Rockwell thought it common to virtually all religions.  https://www.nrm.org/2018/03/golden-rule-common-religions/

So says the media report. Yes, the article itself says DeSantis said communism is evil [I happen to agree, by the way], but it manages to just say it; it does not quote him saying it. Why not? WUSF certainly attended DeSantis talking about FL education, and they must have heard something worthy of actual quotation. Did they interpret his words correctly?

Further, has anyone [you, for example] actually read the two bills noted as being signed by DeSantis three weeks ago, SB 1028 and SB 1108, alleging some capitalist agenda? Funny thing, Communism is not mentioned in either bill, evil, or not. As it happens, neither is capitalism. So, who, exactly is pushing propaganda? WUSF, perhaps? And you, by bringing it up here? Your recent debate was void of any citation as well. It's a good practice. Do your learning from better sources.

Although the US tacitly acknowledges the Hague [the International Court, and its laws], and we generally abide by them, the US is not driven by international law.

The structure of the United States, at least, is the Constitution. It's words apply across the board of ethinicity. That is independent of ethnicity. Granted, it was not always so, but, even when the Constitution was first ratified in 1788, "slavery," or any of its derivative words were never mentioned. In fact, the word did not appear until abolishment of slavery by the XIIIth amendment's ratification in 1865, barely 3/4 of a century into US existence.

Your first point is entirely faulty. As a race [and it was settle a little longer ago than two generations, which typically amount to 20 - 40 years, each] there were free Blacks in the North even during American slavery, and were counted as such and allowed to vote, own property, were counted in the Census as of 1790, etc. You think history as taught by CRT and 1619 Project actually happened? It is nothing but academic and journalistic nonsense.

Racism is not everywhere, nor is it systemic. Systemic implies it is legislated and legally approved. Show me the current legislated statute and legally published gov't or private industry policy that foments racism in its published words. Individual attitudes are not systemic; they are individually driven.

Ha! tell that to people being banned from social media.... like me from YouTube.

There you go; great conclusion! Yes, there are situations beyond our individual control, and some beyond a whole society's control, but primarily, we are individually able to control our environment and how to respond to it, or even anticipate occurrences, plan for them, and proactively prevent much of what occurs.

Is it that easy to buy in to victimhood? That's a personal choice, too. Stop it.

The point is, there are three kinds of people:

Make things happen

Watch what happens

Wonder what happened

Your group who think outcome is dictated by somebody else are always in the third group, and it even invades the second group. We each are in a group by our own choice. Many choose to remain wonderers. They have the capacity, but fail to use it, to advance.

Shyte happens. We mostly suffer by our own choices, but there are times when somebody else comes along to upset the apple cart. But that is not anybody's end of the story. You should know that our suffering, our disappointments, our sorrows, our pains, and even our sins have an outcome that is, ultimately, determined by our own choice; the choice to accept the atonement of Christ, and to embrace his plan for our complete and total redemption, even from actions of others, to overcome all, to even overcome death by resurrection. It is our individual choice for each of us, regardless of the consequences of our lives. We can be redeemable, even the sapling.

Don't expect one parable to explain all of life's choices and consequences. The parable is about the consequences of seeds. They have no choice of where they are sewn. But we are not seeds. We are children of God. He did not toss us here to earth to fend entirely for ourselves. We were placed here with purpose: to know good and evil, to choose between them, to act accordingly, to change our hearts when we go astray, to seek forgiveness when that happens, to forgive others when they stray, even when their straying affects us, to overcome our challenges and disappointments, to choose by our free agency to be obedient to God, or not. To succeed in life, or not. To return to him triumphant over all, or not. Our choice. Entirely.

Mencius ignores two things: 1. We were placed here and were given dominion over the earth. In that regard, we tend to blame God when things go wrong. But it is not his dominion, is it? It's ours to deal with as we choose. We often choose poorly. Why blame God? It's our stupidity, and the sooner we recognize that, the. better our entire environment will be. We complain Earth isn't heaven? Are we so blind, we don't know what that looks like? Are we totally incapable of creating that environment if we choose to do so? Make a desert blossom as a rose? We know how to do that. But our greed, our propensity to satisfy ourselves, and everyone else be damned is a mentality we choose to take. God is responsible for our choices? Bullshyte.

2. God was prudent enough to give us many examples scattered around the earth, as it was created, to help us understand that we can make a desert look like a rose garden. We can plant trees to grow a forest. We can move water from one location to another to secure another paradise where it once did not exist. Why don't we have aqueducts from the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi to shunt that water to the Southwest, and also solve much of the flooding downstream? We can do that, but don't. So, the Sahara used to be a rainforest? We can restore that forest, but don't. Why not? Our choice to be stupid? Yeah, probably. 

Bottom line: we need to stop thinking we are victims. Time to start taking our responsibility of stewardship over this Earth, and ourselves.

Discrimination has many faces, and only one of them is racial. Another is habits. Another is education. Another is lifestyle. Another... get the picture? Everyone does not discriminate racially. Isn't that the real condition, that you blithely ignore?

Human nature is what each individual makes of it. They are either controlled by it, or they control it. Get the picture? Everyone is not a slave to our nature. Some can overcome.

Naturally systemic is an oxymoron. That gets back to both issues above, neither of which are necessarily true. It's been demonstrated above that nature is not a compelling factor; we can overcome it, individually, and even collectively, but the latter is rare. The system is not what we are; it is what we create, socially. The system is government; its legislation and established policies; what we write down as the rules of society, not a conglomerate social consciousness b y which everyone is plugged in. We either obey law [written statutes of how we should comport ourselves], or departmental and even private corporate policies [written - and to which all department or corporate members agree, or they agree to leave, individually, should they disagree or are fired [or should be] for violation. THAT's systemic.

But that argument offers nothing to the question: Why are Blacks poorer? If education is linked to personal earning potential, and it is on an individual basis, and if other society factors are, in fact, factored in [divorce rate, family abandonment rate, etc], those factors define solution to the poorer condition. It goes back to personal responsibility to get off welfare, and not a systemic cause depressing anyone into welfare, because a free education is offered to every citizen K-12, and scholarship for college is available to those who excel.  Who can excel? Back to personal responsibility, not government oversight. I offer Dr. Ben Carson as example, who's single-parent mother was illiterate, yet challenged her children to excel. Tell me what advantage, other than his ambitious mother, Dr. Carson had. He's not alone. The NFL, MLB, NBA, are full of such Blacks whose childhoods wold never have guessed at their potential. It's simply personal commitment to personal responsibility to excel. They manage to do it without any offering of allegiance to CRT, or any other hair-brained theory, such as 1619 Project.

As one of the older members, I'm wondering why a few of the mods are so shy as to have several unknowns, or all unknowns, on your profiles. Hard to know and trust a cipher...

I have noted before in other topics that I personally find no distinction between creationism and evolution, and I'm pretty certain that is a relatively rare view for this site. Most of you definitively come down on one side or the other, never considering that they might be co-equal processes. Someone can explain why they cannot both be operative. What, because God wouldn't think of allowing adaptation? Darwin certainly allowed for it, and he'd never heard of DNA. It is, by the way, for environmental basket-cases, the way we resolve climate change, as well - we adapt [evolve, for purists]. Oh, I'm all for cleaning our environment, but the idea that if temperature rises another 2 degrees, and we're toast, is just a bit silly. Hint: don't use butter on a sunburn.

Reparations would be unconstitutional, violating Article I, section 9, clause 3: no ex post facto law.

Your advice has always been and will always be valued. Thanks

Many thanks to David, Ragnar, and MisterChris for your service; congratulations to MisterChris for your elevation to head mod, and to SupaDudz & whiteflame for your elevation to mods.

There are natural sinkholes in FL...

I don't think reverence is a necessary attitude directed only to God, although I am obviously very religious. I feel reverence standing in a forest, watching a mountain stream, or the ocean's roar against rocks... The Earth, herself, commands reverence.

Some people will believe any shyte they hear. That's on them. I'll wager your reference says nothing of the charity, education, and first response assistance rendered around the world over more than 100 years. And, yes, no doubt Pepsi is part of a large portfolio of investments. Anything wrong with that? It happens to be legal, but those funds are kept separate from any purchase of real property & goods for use in religious purposes, and a public report is issued every year, as required by the US Gov't, and has never been questioned. Does your source mention that, or is it baseless innuendo, which it usually is. At least TheUnderdog is asking honest questions. Too proud to do that?

Glad to answer your questions:

The tablets you speak of were really thin, gold plates. Not sure of the size, but they seem to have been approx. 9" x 6" x 1mm, in a stack bound by two or three rings, like a modern 3-ring binder. The number of plates is not known for certain, but they were edited from a larger complex of records over 1,000 years, roughly 600 BCE to 400 CE. The original group beginning the record was a family, fathered by a merchant-turned-prophet in Jerusalem during the reign of Zedekiah when Jerusalem was sacked and taken captive by Babylon. The prophet's name was Lehi. Before the desrtuction, he took his family into the wilderness south of Jerusalem and traveled over a period of 8 years to what is probably, today, the south coast of Oman and from there, built and sailed a ship either west through the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, or east through the Indian Ocean to the Pacific [the record speaks very little of that ocean journey] to land somewhere along the east or west coast of North or South America. It's vague because all of about less than 20 verses speak of the entire ocean journey. Here they lived abut a thousand years, and the visit of Jesus Christ is detailed after his resurrection and ascension from Jerusalem. I have read it numerous times and know it to be a true testament of Christ.

It was written in a language called reformed Egyptian in the record itself. The characters are unrecognizable to any currently know ancient language, but there are some similarities to both Egyptian hieroglyphs, in which I happen to be fluent, and ancient Hebrew. Both languages have a very concise syntax; much can be said in few words, much less than in English. In English, the Book of Mormon is about 520 pages. So, it is, itself, a fallacy that what appears in English from the whole text in reformed Egyptian is not an impossibility even if the language were either Egyptian hieroglyphs or Hebrew; there were sufficient plates to contain the text.

We have members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in every State in the Union, and about 160 other countries, with just less than 17M members worldwide.

As long as we're complaining about English grammar, what are the commas doing?  Otherwise, you're spot on.

I take Wiki at its own word.

Caveat lector

That term is an oxymoron.

I disagree with most definitions offered here; they're too myopic. First, the only valid distinction between communism and socialism is that the former does a better job of deleting family and religion from society. This is because the communist state takes over the rearing of children from parents, and parents are convinced to abdicate that responsibility. The second, deleting religion from society. That occurs because the communist state will push the definition of religion as an opiate rather than as an individual preference to seek higher meaning to life and devotion to a deity instead of the State. The communist state cannot afford split devotion by its citizens, and, frankly, can't compete, anyway. Other thaqn those two features, little separates communism and socialism.

Economically, socialism will try, but fails at every effort to own and operate business, because, as I've demonstrated in other threads, socilaism does not know how to run a lemonade stand, let alone a serious manufacturing enterprise. Socialism insists there is nothing to the bourgeois necessity except making and selling a product, wherein the average use of revenue is to pay the bourgeois [management] 60% and the proletariate [labor] 40%. Socialism says 40% is not sufficient since they do "all the work."  Clearly, they do not, and socialism ignores that along with manufacturing, and sales, [product-making & selling], there is R&D, factory set-up, process design, tooling design & manufacturing, purchasing raw materials, materials logistics, marketing, warranty, customer service...  All of this expense is paid out by management, so there is no 60% profit, as claimed by socialism. In fact, of all activities, the 40% to direct labor is the biggest slice of the revenue pie. Management [ownership] is lucky to profit more than 50 cents of a $5 gross revenue per product. This is why socialism collapse in every country it has ever been tried.

And no country will successfully start out of its chute with socialism [or communism] because that system depends on other peoples' money to operate. It develops no revenue on its own.

@RM

As Zed and Intel have noted, new uses do not negate old uses. In this case, one original use of #, which may predate your birth, only means that your historic knowledge needs refreshing, as I mentioned a few posts ago; like #1. Give it up, man. Your argument is not as old as you think. At this rate, you would argue that a pair of cans and a string was social media, but I defy you to find the reference. Even in wiki.

@ RM

Actually, I do. I grew up in Brentwood, CA. My neighborhood had many people in it across the movie industry. I was acquainted with actors, directors, producers, and many crew personnel. None of this industry is foreign to me. I know first hand what its like for types like her. I watched them fawn over guys like Weinstein. I've been in theater [stage] production since I was a child. I sang at the Hollywood Bowl twice as a member of high school barber shop quartet competitions. Yeah, I'm a guy, but even then, being gay in Holowood was rampant and i was not. I had to tell gays to never touch me or I'd break their arm. By the time I graduated high school, I was 6'3", 185 lbs, blonde and tanned, living 4 miles from the beach. You want to find someone who doesn't know, look in the mirror.

To erase history with the intent to prevent its recurrence is the height of stupidity. Who would remember to avoid things we wish did not happen if it is erased from history?

Yeah, what Ragnar said.

personal choice to consider wiki as inconsiderable.

Wiki is just stiki

@RM

Some people just take victimhood to a new level. That one was over the top

Having been in over 30 countries in my boomer days, I know their currencies and symbolic glyphs, bud. Apparently, you were unaware of the other uses of # than the one with which you are familiar. Sorry for the lack of your education, the lack of which is merely the0 matter of a calendar. Have you had your first leap year, yet?

When telephones first began converting to touch tone from dial tone in the 1970s in the US, via AT&T, there were two added keys to the digits of the touch tone units as opposed to strictly 10 digits on the dial, 0 - 9.  I was an employee at AT&T at the time, while an undergrad.  The two added keys were [*] and {#], called "star" and "pound" by AT&T. The # sign was also in use prior to the 70s as a symbolic abbreviation for lbs [pounds, as in avoirdupois [having weight].  My world did not begin. quite as late as yours. Your generation should ask why, in a world no longer having typewriters, your keyboard entry speed is impaired by the key arrangement, dictated by the need to avoid locking up the  type bars [aka "strikers"]. There is a faster key entry arrangement, but your generation thought it too hard to adapt the keyboard. oooh, poor baby, just as my generation blew it by not adapting to the metric system.

Apparently. RM blocks anyone with whom he encounters a strong disagreement he believes exists. I remain blocked for his believing I advocate abuse of women, simply because I ridicule poundmetoo. Women who can rise above that nonsense have my undying support. I don't believe self-victimization is anyone's best friend, and those who espouse poundmetoo mostly end up realizing the foolishness. By the way, men engage poundmetoo, as well.  It's all just neo-Marxist weakness. Oooo, boo-hoo. Get a backbone, people.

Your avatar tells all. That's not Santa Claus.

You claim it is republicans who claim greater executive power, yet, in Trump's first year in office [2017], according to the Federal Register office https://www.federalregister.gov/presidential-documents/executive-orders/joe-biden/2021

55 EOs were signed by by Trump according to the Register in hgis first 12 months. Whereas, Biden, in 6 months, has already signed 51 EOs. well ahead of your criticism of Trump. Care to use some official stats in your stated opinion as to presidential thought on the matter?

Not to mention that your cited Pew Poll includes some information you ignore: 

1. The polled used an insufficient sample size to be statistically significant, using only 1,500 samples when it should have been a minimum if 2,400.

2. The poll also distinguished both liberal and conservative repubs, and the data demonstrates a decided advantage toward liberals among the Rs.

3. The poll also demonstrates a generally declining view of the public of both parties taking a dimmer view of Congress.