So like

[Farview]

Relying on government services is paid for by the people who live in the cities, its not free, its not taking care of things its to stop roads being completely blocked by one person in an suv at a time etc. We even pay a separate City of Philadelphia tax even though we live ten miles outside. Thats not to pay some poor families cable bill, its too ensure that theres a train stopping at my station every half hour

Umm, yes. That's what I said. I was simply making the observation that smaller suburbs and rural areas don't have public transport and other things that make life in a big city possible, so the government that affects them isn't as positive an experience, or even helpful.

I didn't say anything about poor people or cable bills. Read it again.

 

[kcearl]

Umm, yes. That's what I said. I was simply making the observation that smaller suburbs and rural areas don't have public transport and other things that make life in a big city possible, so the government that affects them isn't as positive an experience, or even helpful.

I didn't say anything about poor people or cable bills. Read it again.

I only read that post and it read like you were implying that there's something wrong with city people relying on local government more that rural people. If thats not what you were implying then forget about it. I never said you said anything about cable bills, I did, it was called a joke.

Have a lovely day...all of you wonderful people.

 

[Mick Doobie]

Some people get free cable? Sheesh

I have an over the air antenna, it costs nothing. I dropped cable, too expensive. Started eating into my beer money.

I still have innernet, though.

Hey y'all!

 

[Farview]

Some people get free cable? Sheesh

I have an over the air antenna, it costs nothing. I dropped cable, too expensive. Started eating into my beer money.

I still have innernet, though.

Hey y'all!

The only reason I still have cable is because of my wife. I would have gone the netflix/hulu route long ago, but the Mrs. cant figure out how to use the smart TV. She can't differentiate between the different services, so I would constantly get calls complaining that the TV doesn't work. She also likes to see what's on, instead of deciding what she wants to watch and go hunt for it.

So I'm paying $80/mo Luddite tax.

 

[Pinky]

We recently ended our Dish contract and went back to a Roku for streaming content. I miss the DVR but it's saving us a bunch of money each month, even factoring in the increase in our internet cable bandwidth (from 3Mb to 15Mb), Roku, and monthly subscriptions (Prime, Hulu, Netflix, possibly Sling during NHL playoff for NBCSN).

Thread drift finally, page 9!

Farview, I agree about the role government plays in rural versus city lives. It is a very large part in the adversarial perception. This branch of thought would naturally lead us to regulatory practices and how these conflict with the needs or desires of people using or living off the land. But from what I've read in the past 5-10 years, those relationships are actually at a very good place and people feeling like the Bundy's (who held that national outpost for a bit last year) are the exception now and not the rule. Farmers and ranchers are being heard more in a concerted effort by government agencies to develop their strategies WITH the land owners/users.

I know this because I'm an amateur birder and conservation is always an important topic for birds/wildlife.

Trump seems entirely neutral in these areas, for now. We'll see what steps the Republicans try to take to roll back all the conservation efforts and pollution regulations in the name of 'free enterprise' in the coming years. I know one of my greatest fears is we'll end up like India and other countries that started too late and live in a literal ecological wasteland. Or clear cut everything like the nations with remaining rain forests. We've already seen what happens with fracking in Pennsylvania and Oklahoma, examples of when capitalism is allowed to run unchecked in the US.

 

[DM60]

Thank you very much. My wife and I have been doing this for 8 years now.

I need to get more involved, I think I will sign up for the next election. If I have any questions on how to go abut it, I will PM you you can guide me through it.

All elections are more important. All politics is local and make a bigger difference in your direct life.

 

[beezelbubba]

I'm getting old and soft. I used to love the blood sport of politics.What I'm witnessing on facebook is utterly depressing.I have friends on the left and the right, and have policy sympathies on both sides.People are acting completely irrational.Fucking loonies!

 

[miroslav]

We'll see what steps the Republicans try to take to roll back all the conservation efforts and pollution regulations in the name of 'free enterprise' in the coming years. I know one of my greatest fears is we'll end up like India and other countries that started too late and live in a literal ecological wasteland. Or clear cut everything like the nations with remaining rain forests. We've already seen what happens with fracking in Pennsylvania and Oklahoma, examples of when capitalism is allowed to run unchecked in the US.

Conservation is a great notion. I do all the recycle stuff, and avoid waste...and I don't live on the expectation that someone else will make things good for me.

That said...people have to live, and at some point, if conservation puts a stranglehold on that...you can't expect realistically that the future of some rare fish has to take precedence over the future of man.
Countries like India are taking on the dirty industries that we've abandoned...and then you have China who is playing industrial catch-up, and they're polluting worse than we ever did.
Point being...those people are trying to survive...so talking conservation to them doesn't strike home that easily...heck, it may not make any sense at all if they are trying to simply survive.

It's easy to be an idealist...but that has to be coupled with reality, and not just the reality of our personal world.
We need the products that are made in India and other countries where industry has less regulation, therefore more pollution.
How many here in the USA and other more developed countries are willing to give up on many things in order to improve conservation...while at the same time, cutting off the livelihood of those industrial workers in those countries?
We live good at the expense of pollution in other places...but it also provides basic existence for those people.
If we give up on those things...they also lose...so it's not as simple to just focus on conservation without considering how much has to be given up in order to achieve it.
On the whole...people are not going to give up on their "things"...but they will easily talk about someone else giving them up.

 

[Farview]

Not to mention that those conservation ideas are some of what drove companies to take their manufacturing offshore.

 

[TAE]

Congrats Prime Timers 3 pages on a what could have and would have gone south on the first page not so long ago...

pretty cool getting to hear peoples insights and polar positions on multiple hot buttons without the childish banter and back biting ...we can do this..

 

[Pinky]

Not to mention that those conservation ideas are some of what drove companies to take their manufacturing offshore.

"Some" MAYBE (just maybe). MOSTLY it was because of cheap labor (this article is just one of many you can find on google).

We still make things here. Our environmental regulations aren't actually *that* strict. I know it's one of those dreaded conservative talking points I mentioned earlier. There's a couple reasons EPA regulations (for example) get targeted by big business... 1) the fewer regulations, the less government, the better... and 2) the more relaxed regulatory punishments are, the more 'mistakes' they can make without any consequence (and often the tax payer absorbs much of the cleanup cost, and nothing is 100% back to where it was pre-disaster/spillage). The issue is that once you set a precedence it quickly becomes the new normal. Imagine if oil spills like Deepwater Horizon/BP were allowed to be commonplace. You can thank those nasty regulations for it not being acceptable.

Additionally, big business wants you to think it's government's fault they "are force to leave/hire elsewhere", so it justifies their actions by using environmental regulations as the scapegoat to obscure the actual reason(s). Further pitting America's working class against the government ("regulations are stealing my job!!"). Then they sell the false promise they will take care of America if we let them have their way, which they have already demonstrated ISN'T the case when they moved their manufacturing overseas. This is the stinging part - since the working class ends up supporting policy/Parties that actually HURT them, voting as they have recently in direct conflict with their own best interests. This is, without a polite way of putting it, brainwashing and social engineering on a very large and dangerous scale. We can all thank Faux News for playing a big role in being the mouthpiece for this misinformation.

As far as whether regulations need to exist - as you say, look at Asia right now. They have health harming smog daily in most major metro areas. We used to have that too in the '70s (not to mention acid rain, etc), until we did something about it. And this was BEFORE the great migration of manufacturing from this country. It wasn't until the cheap labor became available to US based manufacturers did we see that migration take place.

So again I'm suggesting that the talking points used in large part to poison the populace are false. This isn't a "we either desolate the planet or we don't eat" scenario. Never was, never has to be. You've heard the saying "Don't shit where you sleep"? Asia is learning this as we speak, the hard way, the same as we had in the last Century. Look up the list of superfund sites sometime. Most of them are the result of industry.

 

[Farview]

It's purely financial. Cheap labor, cheap overhead (real estate, utilities, etc...), lack of regulation, etc...

 

[Pinky]

It's purely financial. Cheap labor, cheap overhead (real estate, utilities, etc...), lack of regulation, etc...

Labor is the biggest single cost savings of those listed, by a WIDE margin.

 

[Pinky]

I should note that one of Trump's platforms was to bring the jobs back, and on that single topic I agree that there can and should be some effort by BUSINESSES to bring those jobs back. But the question is whether we are willing to pay for it, either through tax breaks/incentives or through increased cost of goods. The fact is - we can't afford to make things here at the labor rate being paid elsewhere. Either their pay is too low, or our expected pay too high. My last reply was more to set-the-record-straight with regards to why regulations are attacked, not whether we have a labor problem in this country.

 

[kcearl]

Well Ive seen quite a few things on social media about the upturn in "hate" crimes, or racial abuse. Most of it was either dismissed, ignored, deflected. No one really wants to take ownership of it. Same thing happened after brexit, a spike of 41% in those kind if incidents.

Watched that appalling video of the white guy being dragged from the car by black thugs and couldnt gelp thinking "it wont be their first crime and at least theyre taking an interest in politics now"

But it all seems quite distant..even though I live near Philly theres no BLM, or anti Trump marches in Delaware County...just sunshine and starbucks.

Then for the first time an incident happend to someone I know. She was loading her groceries into her car with her two kids, something I did yesterday too, and was told by a guy in a car to "take her chinklets and leave now, this is Trump nation!"

My kids are mixed too...I really dont want to face jail time.

 

[Illsidgus]

I need to get more involved, I think I will sign up for the next election. If I have any questions on how to go abut it, I will PM you you can guide me through it.

All elections are more important. All politics is local and make a bigger difference in your direct life.

Feel free to PM me. It is really very simple, just call you county clerks office.

 

[TAE]

Well Ive seen quite a few things on social media about the upturn in "hate" crimes, or racial abuse. Most of it was either dismissed, ignored, deflected. No one really wants to take ownership of it. Same thing happened after brexit, a spike of 41% in those kind if incidents.

Watched that appalling video of the white guy being dragged from the car by black thugs and couldnt gelp thinking "it wont be their first crime and at least theyre taking an interest in politics now"

But it all seems quite distant..even though I live near Philly theres no BLM, or anti Trump marches in Delaware County...just sunshine and starbucks.

Then for the first time an incident happend to someone I know. She was loading her groceries into her car with her two kids, something I did yesterday too, and was told by a guy in a car to "take her chinklets and leave now, this is Trump nation!"

My kids are mixed too...I really dont want to face jail time.

Wow that angers me....what a living piece of shit.....I am sure it would anger Trump...that isn't what he's about nor most of those that voted him in....absolutely there are some pieces of shit like that jack ass who made the chinklets comment ( DAMN THAT INFURIATES ME ) that did vote for him...that dude needs a lobotomy. Breaks my heart to hear such a story.... that is sooooooo Un-American

 

[kcearl]

Wow that angers me....what a living piece of shit.....I am sure it would anger Trump...that isn't what he's about nor most of those that voted him in....absolutely there are some pieces of shit like that jack ass who made the chinklets comment ( DAMN THAT INFURIATES ME ) that did vote for him...that dude needs a lobotomy. Breaks my heart to hear such a story.... that is sooooooo Un-American

Yeah its pretty disgusting. Its not really the words, or sentinent, its the fact that this jerk feels like hes entitled to say shit like this now. Shes not even an immigrant, shes American. She was a little frightened, but more feeling that there is no coming together, no healing, if anything even more of a divide. Im already clearing house on facebook friends that even support him, I dont have to argue with everyone on the internet, and people are entitled to vote and feel how they wish...but Im entitled to Not know them online or in real life.

Really pissed me off.

 

[kcearl]

Ill stay out this thread now...its nice that it doesnt go all "cave" the moment politics are mentioned...but I might.

 

[Steenamaroo]

Ill stay out this thread now...its nice that it doesnt go all "cave" the moment politics are mentioned...but I might.

Lol. Fair.
I clicked the wrong link and thought the Leonard Cohen thread had totally shit itself,
but for a politics thread things are going pretty well.