Unemployment, and so on

[kandrathe]

Ad hominem attacks and idle threats do not endear you to this community, and while you've seemingly yet to grasp that concept you repeatedly express a desire not to remain here - yet here you are.

Call me the crazy libertarian, but I think it's a bit disconnected to have one who is self-proclaimed to be 100% Marxist, and studying political science in a nation that despises Marxism. Nothing to me has been more non sequitur of late, than a Marxist political science student worried about getting a job out of college. I can't think of a more quixotic endeavor or a better way to self-flagellate than to dedicate oneself to to the ideal of toppling a free market economy in the worlds largest free market economy. Thank God, I changed my major from nuclear physics back in the early 80's, and chose my eminently more marketable real talent, which was programming computers.

Collectively, (pun intended) I feel the supporting arguments he presented were well challenged. Although, possibly a person with a better grasp of the theories, and a more understandable and eloquent delivery might have made a better case (which I was also interested in understanding). In any case, since he is in an extreme minority of viewpoint, it should come as little surprise that the majority of people on the planet just want to be left to enjoy their lives in whatever crappy system we live under. And, if you need to whip out Hegel dialectics to attempt to convince the masses, you are truly Quixote with a lance the size of ... Well, I don't know... Burj Khalifa? Tilt away.

At any rate, Shadow was not defending the article. She was trying to draw your conclusion of slavery from said article, and was falling short (as has just about everyone else). She gave you a very reasoned, rationale question and not only do you ignore her inquiry, you attempt to debase those who attempt to converse with you (let alone criticize you or your viewpoints), and then proceed to ignore them entirely.

Interestingly enough, I've made this similar argument many months ago, and it was similarly met with equal challenge. I'll try to be more succinct this time. I see the bigger problem more as limiting peoples options for being self sufficient, and forcing them into a system where they choose the dole, or working for a mega-corporation, like Walmart. Some examples... You cannot drive a cab in almost every city without permission. You cannot open a fruit stand without permission. It's getting to the point where every consumer product, including fresh produce, must be tracked, cataloged, and tagged by the government. It is just a further turn of the screw to then have that government who limited your choices to then turn around and coerce you (for free) into the arms of the corporations.

I described climbing out of poverty much like a beetle climbing the side of a bowl. The further you get from the bottom, the steeper the sides get and eventually due to some shake up (e.g. economic problem, illness, crime, etc.) that beetle just slides right back down into poverty again. The bowl to me are both the rigid rules, but also that we increasingly accept the limitations, in the name of _____. Sometimes that's safety, sometimes it's fairness, and sometimes its just a mystery.

I described that we, like the beetle in the bowl, are as trapped in our system. Ultimately, exhausted, there are no options except to accept your lot wherever you happen to be clinging. It's not a bad trap, but it is a trap. We live in a country where some of the anti-wallstreet protesters (representing the poorest 99%), once kicked out of Zucotti Park, layed up in a $700/night luxery hotel. I'm feeling that some of them are more at the upper 90% level, than at my level.

I know I am breaking the cardinal rule of online social interaction ("Don't feed the trolls"), but perhaps you could take a step back from your rhetoric long enough to see your follies. At the very least, it would make your presence here more tolerable to those of us who prefer to discourse in a more civilized, respectable manner.

Or, as my dad always told me... "Count to ten, and if you're still upset, then to count to a thousand." I'm at that point in my life where I don't really get worked up at too much in this world anymore, except for those actions that victimize others. My advice would be for FIT to add more thought, more research, more reasoned contemplation, and less bombast.