happycamper

Jack, what are you talking about? Do you really think that Merkel uses "fear to stay in power" and to "control" Austria? Do you think that May does the same? Do you think that Abe has trade policies with Mexico because of "fear" and power? Also, what does fear "get" us? Respect has gotten us trade deals, alliances, entire areas to buy in to our government system, entire areas to buy in to our economic system, entire areas to dedicate their foreign policy to uphold the current system that explicitly favors the US, and people to want to buy our stuff. What things do you think fear is getting us?

This will get funding

Yes, the 1860s is DEFINITELY the era to point to when it comes to "issues not tearing the nation apart". More problems: Historical illiteracy Thinking your opinion is fact Valuing what you want over what is real

Given what has been going on with Maduro you could make a pretty cogent argument that he's calling for the stop of the coup.

Well, yeah, we take Europe seriously for anything. NATO is the strongest alliance in modern history, European nations share our values, from liberal democracy to market economies to internationalism like no other area, it's one of the biggest markets globally, they're generally steadfast allies when we aren't, say, lying about WMDs and then trying to convince people to come - and even then we get quite a few European nations to come along. Seriously, Jack, our hegemony isn't built on fear. It's built on trade, Hollywood, and the almighty dollar. Any one great power can effectively thwart our designs in their area - see Russia. Any two great powers together can effectively turn billions against us. Any three could defeat us. We're on top because we've managed to convince a massive swath of the globe that we are "good guys", that our interests align, and that trade is good. We don't even have the foot soldiers or will to defeat goat herders in the poorest country on earth, how do you think "fear" will serve us better than respect?

Oh man I read something somewhere that he was written out of Empire so he did this to drum up pub. What a tool

Wait... so he said that his motivation for this was that he lost his job and lied about that too?

I mean, he did this because he had already lost his job, so the most typical repercussion that you see for crap like this has already happened

Wyoming has WUE with other western states. Kids get much cheaper tuition rates with good grades from around the West. It was significantly cheaper for my wife and my brother in law to attend UW than it would have been for them to go to school in Colorado with in-state tuition. Hell, I graduated high school in Fort Collins and it was cheaper for me to go to Gonzaga than it would have been for me to go to CU, let alone Mines (not that I would have gone to either anyway, at the time I graduated the Hathaway was honored to any graduating senior who had attended a Wyoming high school for a full year at any point, if I was going to stay nearby I was going to go to the zero tuition school).

I'm sick of you being so hypocritical. When I took five minutes to text back an "ooh nice" at your 14th dick pick of Saturday night you composed me a 3 page word document explaining how I didn't make you feel valued enough.

and a comet

I wish I could make this a POLL where each respondent could add a question to the POLL. I mean, I'm making it so I could edit it and add them, but no. If we get enough of these, I could make a BIGGEST PROBLEM DERBY where we vote on them and come up with the biggest problem in America (provided interest, as well). at any rate: Suicide Criminal justice sentencing - punish vs. rehabilitate for victimless crimes Lack of investment in infrastructure of tomorrow Lack of investment in skills development outside of white collar skills Lack of infrastructure maintenance Increasing monopolization/trust level corporatocracy- to big to fail banks, 2 companies having 90% of internet ad revenue, phone companies trying to re-create Bell, and so on Lack of investment in basic research Why no moon base? Lack of civic engagement at the state government level - from the parties not being organized to push their platform at a state level to voters not caring to generally underwhelming talent to vote for All right guys, yer up

I feel like without kids I would begin the gradual descent to being lolfazz's counterpart

It happened again and boy do I feel MANIC! @thelawlorfaithful and @retrofade you guys may be on to something, the week is an acquired taste but 13 espresso shots in and maybe it can be acquired!!!

No, that isn't what I'm saying at all. In fact, I'm saying the opposite. We have the responsibility to have competent government. We have the responsibility to not create a structure that is disadvantagous to hundreds of millions. We have the responsibility to build the strongest country we can. We're talking about public policy dude. Everything is a dissertation. It's billions of dollars for millions of people, anything other than extreme care and attention to detail is negligence. For example, let's go in to the consequences of your post. You are strongly implying that structural inequality doesn't matter, that geographical circumstances don't matter, that incompetent government doesn't matter - only personal responsibility matters. I feel like this is essentially abdicating personal responsibility of actually making your government work for you, but I digress. The logical consequences of this thought process are as follows. Trigger warning: these conclusions are all +++++ing bonkers on purpose; I chose logical outcomes of your very poorly described position that neither I nor you agree with at all for rhetorical purposes. Your father was less wealthy than you are and less economically successful. Why was he so irresponsible? Do you think you learned responsibility from your mother's side of the family or from the free state run schools you went to? Idaho per capita is significantly less wealthy than Wyoming per capita. Why are Idahoans so much less responsible than Wyomingites? Is there some sort of cultural mistake that we Wyomingites could right for your backwards state? Cities by and large are much, much wealthier per capita than rural areas. San Francisco, Seattle, and Manhattan are great examples of this. Why do you think that people in these cities have so much more personal responsibility than anywhere else in the country? Certain areas are significantly poorer than others at a state level. Why do you think that Eastern Kentuckians are just so much less responsible than, say, Northern Virginians? Immigrants tend to make less money than native citizens, and then 2nd and 1 1/2 generation immigrants tend to be far better entrepeneurs than native citizens, and by the 3rd generation there's effectively no difference between 3rd and say 7th generation citizens. Why do you think that immigrants have so much less personal responsibility, and then their children are more personally responsible than anyone else, and then their kids are just the same as everyone else? Iranian immigrants are the wealthiest immigrant group in the US, far more than native US citizens and better than any other immigrant group. Do you think that Iranian culture is just vastly superior to American culture? Again, these are all laughable conclusions that are only possible because your explanation to any and all analysis of public policy is "personal responsibility". Demanding a competent government IS exercising personal responsibility; looking at the bloated, ridiculous, unequal structure we have and saying "good enough, people who are losing out because of the shape of the world we live in just lack personal responsibility" is in itself an abdication of your own responsibility to have a competent government.