What would you do? What would John Galt do?
You walk into a small beach bar on the ocean and a guy is sitting there. You have met him at this establishment before so you sit down near him and strike up a conversation. This is the sort of bar where patrons generally talk freely amongst each other. The man was in politics years ago in Kansas and occasionally brings up political topics. You know that his opinions are all over the map and have even moved to the pool table in the sand in order to not listen to him before. You try to steer the conversation away from politics, but he is not deterred. Then he says:
1) He is for raising the minimum wage
What would you do?
2) He states that minimum wage will not affect unemployment and the law of supply and demand has been repealed.
What would you do?
3) Then he says Obamacare is great.
WWYD?
4) After explaining that the only areas were the cost of medical has gone down are those the government stayed out of (e.g., Laser correction surgery), he says we are the only advanced nation without nationalized health care.
WWYD?
5) Then he says kathleen sebelius, who is from Kansas, is a wonderful women.
6) Then he calls you a racist, because you state Obama has the same philosophy Stalin, Moa, Hilter, etc.
7) Then he states we should get rid of the Constitution.
WWYD?
1) He is for raising the minimum wage
What would you do?
2) He states that minimum wage will not affect unemployment and the law of supply and demand has been repealed.
What would you do?
3) Then he says Obamacare is great.
WWYD?
4) After explaining that the only areas were the cost of medical has gone down are those the government stayed out of (e.g., Laser correction surgery), he says we are the only advanced nation without nationalized health care.
WWYD?
5) Then he says kathleen sebelius, who is from Kansas, is a wonderful women.
6) Then he calls you a racist, because you state Obama has the same philosophy Stalin, Moa, Hilter, etc.
7) Then he states we should get rid of the Constitution.
WWYD?
Previous comments...
To the specific case above involving the Kansas communist, perhaps the shortest, most effective response would be:
"My friend, the policies you are promoting have been implemented in the country of Venezuela over the past several years. You should take a vacation there sometime. You would love it there. It's not for me, however."
Remember there are people who don't know anything about anything outside their neighborhood - and like it that way.
"Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone." Ayn Rand
...Okay, on second thought, you have a third option: Tell him you have never heard such a bunch of balderdash in your life and then walk away.
6. Racist, oh really? I voted for him originally because McCain made an absurd out of left field choice when he picked Palen who has demonstrated she know how to do nothing more than fan the flames of discord and discontent instead of offering real solutions and bringing people together.
5. Sebellius demonstrated just how breathtakingly out of touch and incompetent she was by not knowing how to manage a website rollout. She may be a wonderful person, but she is an incompetent manager.
4. So what, just because all my friends may be jumping off a bridge doesn't mean its the smart thing to do. And just maybe the government doesn't know how to manage anything efficiently. Look at the VA.
3. Really, based on what conceivable measure.
2. Well, duh!!!
1. People should be able to live on the income from 40 hours a week of work. So raise it. The problem isn't minimum wage. The problem is a government that takes more than 60% of earnings in taxes of one form or another, then delivers a lousy return on the take. Congress is made up of incompetent egoists terrified to make meaningful decisions, and interested in telling people what they want to hear, blaming others for the very problems they cause in order to keep the best jobs they've ever had.
Yes. I think of politics as being all the villains in AS and Fountainhead. The heroes are just getting things done.
What would the founding fathers have done? If more people had pointed out how evil Hitler's ideas were, would it have stopped him?
Hitler was very good at the aggressive use of force. There were more than enough people who pointed out how evil Hitler's ideas were. They also left.
Ein Volk, Ein Reich,Ein Fuehrer because they believed his complete pile of horse shit. And if you questioned them, they were as self righteous as Vallery Milhous Obama and turned in to the Sturmabteilung - now it is the IRS.
Cheers.
OBTW my tactical call sign as a navy fighter pilot was Kraut.
Me ATN2 on A7C&E, VA-25, Enterprise and Ticonderoga.
1.squadron German Naval Airwing 2 (F-104G Starfighter) as USN exchange pilot '82-'84
VF-211, VF-124 & VF-302 (F-14 Tomcat) '84-'92 USS Kittyhawk, USS Nimitz.
It was a long time who in a galaxy far far away.
Thank you for keeping us in the air with great machines.
Cheers
Cheers
I have been outside the process for almost 20 years. The last systems I was actively involved in were the. F-14D and F-18E/F. They were very successful programs and needed at the time. They were work horses in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I will try some contacts and gain some intel to forward to you DB . You can make your own decision.
Cheers
Cheers
There were plenty of Germans who cowered. The ones who pointed out how evil Hitler's ideas were left if they pointed them out early enough. If they waited too long, they got sent to a concentration camp.
Regarding public confrontation, privately taking someone aside, just ignoring the situation, or leaving, some of my response would depend on a) whether I was hosting the party, b) he was hosting the party, c) how well I knew the Obama supporter, and d) how much I liked him/her personally before this incident.
I would just quote the oath. The prior sentence was primarily to answer LetsShrug and dbhalling's question about what John Galt would have done.
Perhaps the best lesson I learned from being in a Marriage Encounter group for the last 15 years is that it is much harder to lose your temper in written word than in conversation.
Both George Washington and Ben Franklin had well thought out regimens to help them improve their public behavior, although Franklin did have some private situations in Europe that I am sure he wanted to keep private. Washington is the better role model.
that is interesting and quite a commitment...through what venue, j? obviously you find it helpful for 15 years...
but it's definitely not for atheists.
My wife and I spent one weekend there, and have met with other couples monthly since. It is a solid investment in a healthy marriage.
If I couldn't speak to Obama voters, I wouldn't know almost anyone. I don't poll people about voting, but I think I know two people who didn't vote for him both times. My wife and I voted for him and went to his fundraisers. That's very different from thinking he's a panacea.
Politicians get elected through our current two-party system with our current campaign finance system. They're intelligent and ambitious, so they think the exec branch should have more power, so they can do more good. They can't very well condemn the system that put them in power. So we don't get any significant reform. The exec branch keeps getting more power. The gov't keeps slowly getting more intrusive.
I have not met President Obama, although I have friends who have. I suspect he is a good person. Having a good person in office, though, doesn't seem to stop trend toward an intrusive gov't.
Yes. I avoid talking to ideologues of any sort. I don't know too many of them. They can be normal people, but once you get them going on politicians, they carry on about how one politician is evil or a saint. I think most people have a tacit rule about not getting these people going.
Yes. The recession of '91 helped Clinton get elected on "it's the economy stupid." It helped him get re-elected. It feels like history repeats itself. I agree Bush and Clinton had nothing to do with the economic cycle.
I sensed Clinton battled the "firebrand" Contract-with-America Republicans the same as President Obama battles the Republicans today. I don't follow it closely enough to know who's doing a better job of bipartisanship. Esp today I sense both sides want a balanced budget without cutting military, SS, or Medicare or raising taxes, in other words not really changing things. The ones who do talk about deficits are sanctimonious about wanting to cut progs they never supported.
"Did anyone ever figu're out why Gore said he invented the Internet?"
He was talking about funding DARPAnet or something, and it came out wrong.
"He should have won easily. "
Yes, based on my theory that people credit the president with the economy. Instead it was too close to call and the Supreme Court just selected someone.
"The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it."
and I used to have a Latin quote in my office that translated to "He who keeps silent, consents."
We cannot allow them to silence us while we go along with the pretense that they are not naked.
We are doomed to again collapse and be ruled. Alas, this time, it may be forever as we have created the technology by which we can be subjugated and controlled by the very few, from very far away. Prior to the mid 20th century, the populace and the governments were relatively equal in their power and it was merely a matter of numbers. Now, numbers are nearly immaterial.
Yes, I'm in a particularly dour mood today.
they guy is 88 yrs old. I was worried there would be a heart attack in front of me...which might be poetic justice, but as I said, in person I am not confrontational. ;)
same thing.
With levity
(can't remember where that quote's from)
Do you think they know? If they know, then there is the question of whether to tell them you know too. If they don't know, it's impossible to tell them that you know.
I was saying if they don't think they're for a bankrupt ideology, then telling them you know won't affect them. If they know it's a bankrupt ideology but think they're tricking people, then it makes a difference if you tell them you see through it.
If someone thinks he can repeal the laws of supply and demand, my talking to him probably won't have any impact.
Those are not logical stances and cannot be won with logic. They are based on emotion, and must be won with counter emotional arguments. You have to bring it directly to them. For instance, if they own a home with a spare bedroom, they should be forced to provide that bedroom to a homeless person only out of "fairness." If they throw away food, they should be forced to have a homeless person sit with them at the table and share the meal out of "fairness." If they have more than 7 sets of clothing in their closet, they should be forced to invite the homeless in to select from their wardrobe to clothe themselves as the only "fair" thing to do.
That's why I ended every speech I ever gave - and some letters - by saying "Never surrender." Never, never - in what seem to be small interactions, to in-your-face arguments. Never.
Having said that, remember that the person working the hardest in the argument will probably lose. Anyone who's argued with a child knows this - they have lots of energy and can think up a zillion reasons why they should be able to have a cookie before dinner. You work harder than he does if you try to counter every single reason with an argument. Pick one or two things to say, and keep saying them, and don't say anything else: "no." and "not a chance". They quit, eventually. This works on everyone.
Thirdly, remember that a person can't be argued out of something he wasn't argued into. That is, one cannot overcome emotion with logic. You're not going to "win" this argument. Your facts will have no impact on him, and your well-crafted replies or statements are wasted on him.
All you can do is to let him know that you, the person standing right in front of him, will never surrender.
so, first, I would not try to steer the conversation away from politics. He's too determined to go with you.
At the first point, I would pick my "one thing to say" , which is usually on the order of "You're wrong, and I have no intention of supporting it, financially or otherwise." Sometimes I add "and you can't make me."
It works against 2, 3, and 4,
Re 5 "I do not know the woman/lady/person."
Re 6, I might point out that he doesn't know me well enough to be able to make that judgement. That one is hard to keep saying, but it can be done.
Re 7 Go back to "You're wrong, and [get right into his face] you'll have to kill me to do it."
STARE
HIM
DOWN
Never Surrender.
that was my favorite scene
mum......mum.....mum.....mum....mum...
Every time I see a news report talking about the "unaccompanied minors" coming across the border, I find myself quoting Alan Rickman...
"MINERS, not MINORS!"
"You lost me"
The scene where Taggart discovers he's a joke... the scene where he decides to be the character he played at being. Sigourney Weaver (looking surprisingly beautiful; can't believe I said that about a communist) giving such expressive looks as she observes his evolution.
Alan Rickman's evolution when he loses his one fan.
The guy gave his conclusions first - a sure sign that he was hoping for a fight, a surrender, or an agreement.
I know it's difficult for thinking reasonable people to believe this, but sometimes we run into non-thinking, non-reasonable people.
If you can't have a decent argument, you can always reduce them to blustering impotent nonsense by making fun of them. It's not nice, but neither are they.
"Since you have decided to lecture you are buying the beer"
Drink beer so long as he buys while he babbles.
When he finally stops, stare him intently in the eyes and say one of two things......
1. Amazing that amount of bullshit hasn't turned your eyes brown yet.
or
2. You are so full of shit your eyes are brown.
Then walk away
Or by the 2nd question, ask him if he would truly like to debate the issues on facts or not?
Then when he deviates from the facts - or worse, denies there are facts - and doesn't care, leave with good cause.
khaling would agree with him on #5 because one may not speak ill of a wimmin.
A saying from the bad old days when women still wore dresses and skirts....
(isn't it funny how guys who dress like girls are called "transvestites" but women dress like men every day and nobody thinks anything of it?)
No?
Then you're as bad as the rest.
Men aren’t all that great with money either. We are all only human. There were as many three mini crashes in the late-nineteenth century, decades before women got the vote.
You keep talking about what women shouldn’t do or can’t do. but you know...I never read any story where GI’s fighting in WW2 complained about how their B-17’s were put together badly by a bunch of dumb broads.
We got your back, Bambib. Shut the hell up, already.
More likely, it's because the B-17s were put together by real women, who loved the men fighting overseas, even the ones they didn't know, loved them for being men, and were extra careful and attentive in their work to make sure those B-17s miraculously brought lovers, fathers, sons home again. Which they did.
"It is impossible for a man to love his wife wholeheartedly without loving all women somewhat." - Robert A. Heinlein
I've discovered this to be true (even having no wife), and I'd be willing to bet the converse is true for women, as well.
Come on, Mimi. Admit it. The majority of women are perfectly happy to steal money from the producing class using government to siphon it into their own pockets or to build welfare systems for their own benefit.
Why not admit it?
Come on, Bambib.
What role do you see women playing IF you had your way and they weren’t allowed to vote?
Admit you're an over sized cry baby? That you don't behave like a man? That you have a negative fixation with women? Do you, huh, do you?
Well, come on. Are you RATIONAL? Or just EMOTIONAL? Can you THINK? Or only FEEL? Are you a HUMAN? Or just an ANIMAL?
Show me what you've got, because at the moment, all I see is an emotional, feeling, animal. Is there anything more to you? It's a serious question. Is there?
Show me. Show me you can THINK, not just emote.
Oh hell. Why do I bother? You're not going to wake up.
Oh well. Then just call me a misogynist.
It looks like bambi is right and you just don't have any facts on your side. Why did you say babmbi never provides any facts? That isn't true.
There was a study cited in a science magazine in the mid-80s. The study examined how men and women viewed justice.
The women in the study tended to view justice as doing the least harm to the least number, while the men viewed it as punishing bad behavior and rewarding good behavior.
The conclusion was that these views were a result of our early roles; men went out on the hunt where making mistakes gets people killed, whereas women were left as the only fully able-bodied to run a camp full of the elderly, the crippled and children. Letting interpersonal situations get out of hand would result in harm, there.
Assuming this study is accurate in their findings and conclusions, it makes sense that as women gain influence in society and government, the nature of the society and government would change.
I repeat… you are a LIAR.
I'd expect khalling to side with her lying husband. Are you the third person without integrity in their bed?
-1
I have not read John Lott's paper and I don't want to either.
All I said was the majority of women vote in such a way as to destroy America.
But if you'll define "block", there's a very good chance I can prove you wrong.
"Disrespect" isn't an action-verb.
It started out with me presenting facts that the women here did not want to hear. They started the name-calling and refused to engage ON THE FACTS.
The more they deny the obvious, engage in personal attacks and refuse to engage on a FACTUAL basis, the more it becomes clear that they're dishonest or mentally challenged. In either case, their opinions become meaningless.
You'll note that NOT ONE has engaged on the facts in the John Lott paper on the effects of women voting. The problem is the women here don't LIKE the facts and they cannot DISPUTE the facts. All that's left to them is name-calling fits. If they receive insults in response to their insults, it's no less than they deserve.
If they would engage on facts, they'd find my posts will lose their barbs - but the facts can be pretty thorny things all by themselves… especially when none support your sacred beliefs.
For the record, I assert that our economic system did not go haywire (begin its plunge into irrecoverable debt) until women began to vote, that women voting was the primary and proximate cause of the aggregation of debt and the female vote is responsible for the vast majority of the unfunded mandates (mostly social welfare programs) which are estimated to be on the order of $200 trillion over the next 50 years. I further assert that if women did NOT vote, that most of our current $17+ trillion dollar debt would not exist.
In short, women in America act like they think government spending is a "no limit" credit card that never has to be paid off and when this is mentioned they don't want to talk about it.
It is the majority of women (and a minority of men), through this financial evisceration of the government (while demanding that it grow to meet their every whim) who are destroying America.
Anyone have FACTS to the contrary? Let 'er rip.
:)