(sorry for the length) :)
Let's start with your first rebuttal.
"How, exactly, does one go about hiding the discriminatory mass-murder of the political elite from over 300 million people?"
The news that we're given from our media, believe it or not, is filtered and watered down. The first filter is size and ownership. On the face of it, it seems that we have thousands of different sources we get our news from but this is not true. If you look up the big six media, you will see that 6 major corporations own over 90% of the media. (GE, Walt Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Viacom, CBS, Clear Channel Communication) These six corporations own many thousands of news outlets under different names, to give us the illusion of choice. But we really don't have thousands of choices we have 6. The second filter is advertising. Mainstream media's objective isn't to educate the people......... it's to make $$$$. They are not going to publicly talk about anything controversial that will make their advertisers pull out. Main stream media has every reason to underplay huge issues such as citizens united. The increased flow of dollars to candidates means more profit for commercial television in election years. The mainstream media basically sells democracy to the highest bidder. There are a couple other filters but I won't get into the right now. I urge you to fact check all of this, people need to wake up and learn that this is true.
"Define "poor"."
I don't know if your sources are credible, but according to the last report the Census Bureau conducted more than 45 million people live below the poverty line. If you don't believe that listen to this, The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees SNAP (food stamps), counted almost 43.6 million people in the program in April 2016, the most recent data available. Many people that receive food stamps have a full time job, they work from 9-5 if not longer and still need food stamps to be able to get by. I know, I used to be a food stamp recipient. SO explain to me how this system works, people work hard and long and still can't get by without help.
"In my opinion, the government's far too involved in our economic system for it to function correctly."
It's not the government alone that's involved, it's the corporations that lobby the government. Billion dollar corporations lobby both parties and so they hedge their bets. So it doesn't matter who wins, in the end they get what they want.
"Which is entirely illegal; responsibility for failure to enforce campaign and bribery legislation lies entirely on the government's shoulders."
It is illegal if you call it buying elections, but it's not illegal if you call it lobbying or campaign donations. These campaign donations aren't given because of similar political stances, they're given because politicians pass legislation that benefits their donors. It's not a coincidence that once companies give campaign donations legislation gets passed that favors that company or pac. Here's an example the Goldman and Sacs donated to Bush's campaign and Henry Paulson who firmly worked for Goldman sacs was appointed treasury secretary. Then when the government bailed out big banks coincidentally Goldman sacs received the most money.
"Can you provide any example of this that doesn't fall under my above statement?"
The example given above and I'll give you another one. Millions of dollars were 'donated' by Robert Stanford on political campaigns they year congress was debating a bill to curb financial fraud. Two of the biggest recipients were Bill Nelson and John McCain. Three key Democrats on the senate banking committee got checks from Stanford too. Surprise, surprise the reform never got out of the senate. (Another example is the citizens united case, you can look this one up for yourself.)
"Which is, to reiterate, illegal. Further, a progressive tax system is inherently anti-Capitalist, as it punishes success and therefore deincentivizes it, and is therefore inherently contradictory to the system."
Loopholes are not illegal warren buffet admitted to using legal loopholes and only paying a lower rate than his employees. And when we did have a 91% tax rate our budget was at a surplus, can you guess where our budget is now?
"Other than the fact that the top ten percent of earners in the US account for more than half of all tax revenue, while the top one percent account for around a fifth? Meanwhile, the bottom fifty percent of earners account for three percent of all taxes. I have to reiterate: how, exactly, does the system fail? Where are the unwashed masses of starving children dying in droves in the streets beneath the gold-plated skyscrapers of the rich you appear to be alluding to?"
the tax systems are "upside down," with the poor paying more and the rich paying less. Overall, the poorest 20 percent of Americans paid an average of 10.9 percent of their income in state and local taxes and the middle 20 percent of Americans paid 9.4 percent. The top 1 percent, meanwhile, pay only 5.4 percent of their income to state and local taxes. -CNBC article
(http://www.cnbc.com/2015/01/15/
I used to live in Jamaica Queens, a lot of my friends only got to eat in school and pretty much ate little to no food at home. If you want to see these 'starving children' visit a ghetto, cause I don't think you have.
I urge you to fact check me, but unfortunately this is the reality we live in today. Please feel free to message me if you wish to further talk about this topic.
Fun fact : in 2011 , all the Republican candidates for president were asked in a debate what would happen if they were presented a deal to tackle the federal deficit, and the deal would yield $10 in budget cuts for every $1 of tax increases. “Who on this stage would walk away from that deal?” asked Fox News’s Bret Baier. Every single one of them raised their hands, so deeply offensive did they find the notion of any tax increase at all, even one that would allow enormous progress on another goal they claimed to hold dear.
Well, actually there is much much genocidal oligarchy it is just hidden from the public. The 20 richest people in the America have as much wealth as the bottom 152 million people in America. Our form of capitalism has never worked for the poor and it's starting to fall apart for the middle class. Capitalism is good in theory but that's not what we have today. Today corporations can buy elections and write legislation that's not capitalism, that's fascism. We used to have capitalism, in the 1940's the rich paid 91 % income taxes, today they're paying close to nothing or in some cases nothing, due to extensive loopholes that were sent in place by the lobbying super rich. Warren Buffet the investing guru admitted to paying a lower tax rate (17%) than his employees.
"The rich keep all of the money, pay none of the taxes.
The middle class keep none of the money, pay all of the taxes.
The poor are just there to scare the shit out of the middle class. " -George Carlin
Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It’s what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain’t going to do any good; you’re just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There’s a nice campaign slogan for somebody: ‘The Public Sucks. Fuck Hope.’
Don't forget that America during world war 2 also rounded up American citizens that were Japanese and put them in internment camps. This shows that when you need your rights the most they are taken away. Our bill of rights should really be called a temporary bill of privileges.
How can you be so low as to accuse a race of black people of having an "oh poor us" syndrome? Blacks were dragged out of their continent to come and work as slaves in America. And in 2017 they're still treated like 2nd class citizens.
You look at any poor ghetto in America and what's synonymous within them? Poor blacks and latinos. And they're going to stay poor unless their schools are improved upon. Education is the key to getting over poverty. The typical black child who is born and raised in poverty sees his parents work 8-10 hours a day for $8.75 and still need welfare and food stamps to eat. Then he sees drug dealers who are flaunting their wealth, wearing flashy clothes and having a great life. What course do you think that poor black child is going to follow,? Work like a slave for minimum wage or turn to a life of crime, a superficial happiness?
And furthermore, we have a prison industrial complex all in pursuit of profits, which uses prisons to work for companies. The private prison owners have financial incentives ti keep prisons full of "cheap "labor".
A few years ago Trump said that Saudi Arabia "was behind 9/11".
Last summer, a message was posted to Trump's Facebook page that said Saudi Arabia wants “women as slaves and to kill gays.” Later, during a presidential debate, Trump suggested that the Saudis were “people that push gays off buildings” and “kill women and treat women horribly.”
Slavery was justified by Christianity, you are so thick headed that you don't seem to realize that. In the Bible Deuteronomy 20:10-11 states: “When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you.” That is from the Bible of Christianity, case and point. Reporting me to the proper authorities? Are you so close minded that we can't have a proper debate. We still have freedom of speech last I checked. And freedom of speech is there to protect unpopular speech. popular speech does not need protection. Thomas Jefferson said "dissention is the greatest form of Patriotism" why do you get angry when I start to question things. You need to question things because not everything that our government and mainstream media tells you is true. They're not going to say anything that's going to hurt them. It's simple logic. And Why do you forget how isis has been created , when the U.S. invaded and toppled Saddam it created a vacuum for isis to spring up. Saddam Hussein was a very brutal dictator, but during his time there were no powerful Islamic militant groups in Iraq. Now after the invasion of Iraq by the 'freedom loving' America Isis is in Iraq. All the arrocities done are in the name of Allah/Mohammad you're right there, but you fail to realize that the terrorists who do these use Islam as an excuse to fufill the agenda. If you don't believe that, I want you to find, in the Bible where it says that muslims must kill westerners. You go ahead and find that. I want to state that I think all religions are equally bad. And that region has cause millions of deaths over time. But when you are hating on a religion and causing fear I won't stand for that.
This is a difficult topic because once you start to question the beliefs that people have followed throughout their entire lives, people seem to not want to listen. I think the devil is a made up idea that was created to defend the theory of god. 'You need to follow all of god's rules or else you're going to burn in hell forever' but god loves you. That's an oxymoron. Even if god is real, he has done no good on earth. Tens of millions of people of all regions have died in his name. What god would allow that. And doesn't it seem a coincidence that all religions need money? God is so great and powerful but he needs money.
Oh yeah imperialism did Africa a world of good. King Leopold of Beligium only enslaved and killed 10 million Congolese. The Europeans took valuable minerals like gold and diamond from Africa to help them. The Middle East was surely kept in check with fear. Any foreign government in the Middle East that didint bow down to the British was toppled. Case and point Irans democratically elected prime minister mossadegh. He wanted Iran to benefit from its own natural resource of oil so he nationalizes it. And the British along with the CIA planned and commuted a coup d'etat, that let go the shah., which led to today's Iran
Oh yeah and using the same logic, we shouldn't let white people into schools because they're school shooters. Or we shouldn't let black people outside because they steal and shoot. Or we should remove all Hispanic because they're drug dealers. If jihadists find their instructions for murder in the Quran then I guess christians find their instructions for enslaving Africans in the Bible. You can't fix a problem like terrorism with spreading fear, hate, and anxiety. That'll only make it worse. And your argument consists of bigotry and rasicm. Islam does not preach hate and bombings. The people who do these terrible inhumane bombings use Islam as an excuse to follow through with their agendas.
God doesn't exist. Instead of admitting that we dont know if there's a higher power in the universe, we tell ourselves that there's a magic power in the sky who watcher everyone and everything. For the sake of the argument let's say god does exist. Well if he does he's doing a pretty crappy job. How can he let children starve? How can he let wars and destruction happen? How can he let terrorism happen? How could he have let slavery happen? A god that let's this happen is a pretty crappy one.
We need stricter background checks for people who want to buy guns. I am not saying to ban guns. And guns should only be sold from government approved stores. Your first example is a hypothetical so I won't even address it. Now as to your actual example of 'Rome. How can you compare an empire that ruled thousands of years ago to a country in 2017? You say that the Visgoths defeated the mercenaries which is true, but you can't compare that to the American military, which is the strongest fighting force that this Earth has seen, no country on Earth can stack up to the U.S. military. You're argument that we should have guns to defend ourselves if the military fails is inadequate, and not thought out. It would have been very difficult to invade America in world war 2 because of America geographic isolation. America would have defeated the Japanese is they pledged a full out invasion.
There already are natural cures for cancer, but have not been widely spread and talked about. Like anything else in this country Cancer is a business, pharma companies make billions of dollars a year treating cancer patients. There is no money to be made in curing cancer, and that's why it won't happen in this country. But if we genuinely wanted to cance cancer we could. The human species is the smartest in the world. If we put our minds to doing good and helping others there's no limit to what we could do. But instead we're spending our money and best minds into research for new ways to kill people, new ways to cause devastation. Greed is why the cure for cancer hasn't been 'found'.
You talk about casualties of war AGAIN without acknowledging the other side, what don't you do that for a change? Why don't you acknowledge the loss of civilian life in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria? Because it proves your argument invalid I surmise. Who are you to call innocent loss of life in Iraq and Afghanistan 'meaningless statistics'? If I called the loss of life in the terrorist bombings 'meaningless statistics' you'd call me a supporter of terrorism. You're arguments are nothing but insults and hate
against Muslim people as a whole. You want to single out a couple of terrorists, but do nothing to acknowledge the other side. I dare you to talk about the other side for a change, wrote about the atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan for a change. You won't though because it doesn't help your point of view. Don't argue with me unless you acknowledge the other side. You talk in great detail
About legs being blown away in Ireland, what about the thousands of civilian deaths caused by U.S. military bombings? Not relevant? Racists like you is why we have a puy grabbing uneducated man in Oval Office. I directly counter your arguments with statistical facts and you counter my arguments with your hatred of Muslims, that's not a debate that's Muslim bashing. Go ahead counter my arguments don't change the subject.
You're either living a great life or have been watching too much tv. 'The sun will also rise' are you kidding me, this isn't a movie, this is life, and for many life is nothing but a long, drawn out, time of suffering and hurt. If suicide is the only way to end that suffering, why shouldn't it be right?
If you're displeased of Arab countries imposing immigration restrictions then maybe America should stop supporting countries like Saudi Arabia, who still practice Sharia law. 19 terrorists that have been behind 2,369 murders including 9/11 have been from Saudi Arabia. America continues to sells them billions of dollars of military equipment despite this.
The U.S. condemns countries such as Iran for supporting Hezbollah and infringing on people's human rights, but when it comes to Saudi Arabia, the biggest human rights violator and supporter of terrorism they're not denounced. The reason being is because of OIL. If the U.S. were to denounce Saudi Arabia it would be disastrous for U.S. oil companies such as the Saudi Arabia Oil Company, which has its origins after Saudi Arabia's concession to Standard Oil of California, allowing them to explore for oil in Saudi Arabia following the U.S.’s pursuit of an “Open Door policy” under the Herbert Hoover administration to combat the San Remo Petroleum Agreement of 1920.
This is no conspiracy theorist or anti-western propaganda, it's the truth, something you look over because it doesn't conform to your beliefs. How can the muslims return to their countries when America has ruined them by dropping millions of pounds of bombs. These bombs have caused increase amounts of radiation in the region. Mike Townsley, head of a Greenpeace team working in Iraq has measured radiation 10,000 times above normal readings. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/
All of your arguments are one sided, why don't you answer some of these questions in your next argument, "How many civilians has the U.S. military killed in the Middle East?" "Why has the U.S. not acknowledged the radiation it has caused in the Middle East?" "How many of the 9/11 terrorists have been form Saudi Arabia?"
I am not rationalizing the atrocities that terrorists participate in, I am merely saying to look at the other side, the atrocities that have happened against people in Iraq and Afghanistan due to the bombings that America conducts in these countries. Here is one example (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/
You are the perfect example of a person that has been brainwashed by the fear of terrorism. Let me put terrorism into perspective for you. In 2016 ALONE more American civilians have died from gun violence ONLY in the city of Chicago, then Americans have died from terrorism since 2001. Our government uses the fear of terrorism as a way of taking away our rights, such as the patriot act. When there is a constant threat to people, the people will conform and follow whatever rule the government issues, no matter the obvious attack on our bill of rights. Terrorism is a tool that is used by the government to take away our rights.
Deeming me a conspiracy theorist is an argument of the weak man that doesn't question authority. We need to remember that the government works for us and not the the other way around.
Answer those questions that I have indicated and then see if you're argument holds and sense whatsoever.
Well, maybe America should direct it's fiscal policy to help the working class American, rather than helping warmongers. Do you ever stop and think why the US spends as much money on defense as the next 15 countries COMBINED, (hint: to isn't to spread freedom). We love hiding the truth behind that word, don't we? Whenever we attack an oil rich country in the Middle East it's to 'spread freedom'; it's obviously not because of the oil. America has military bases in over 70 foreign countries. Now to me that's doesn't seem like it's for defense, it seems to me that it's to tell countries to know their place or else they might receive some of this 'American freedom' we like spreading so much of. The reason why America is paying so much of NATO'S bill is because America has a lot of power within NATO. The more money America contributes the more closely NATO'S policy reflect America's interests.
