Comments

2

Just another Responsible Gun Owner™ who won't be charged because we wouldnt want to infringe on his rights to endanger people.

@2 Let's arm the toddlers. Those wimps at Sandy Hook would still be alive!

3

"moral mettle"

...unless you're referring to a particular subgenre of the Christian Rock conservatives inflict upon themselves.

4

Prezinazi AntiChrist is a chimp in a diaper hopping mad and firing an Uzi in every direction, including at his own moldy, shriveled nutz.

What’s really sick are the 42% of abjectly stupid, spiteful, nation-ruining, racist fuckfaces that are thrilled by it. They may not like the word nazi, but they love every cruel, evil thing he twits and does.

Someone Bri-tish said of this entire ordeal, “never has stupidity been so nasty, and nastiness been so stupid.”

5

Praise the FSM that people are finally voting en masse.
Now we need them to start asking questions, like “why do we have billionaires?” and
“how come Canada has five major political parties and we only have two?”

6

@5: Why not "why do we have millionaires?" Do you have a threshold?

8

@6 The threshold is right there in the comment, raindrop, and it's "billionaire."

It's kind of hard to figure out what Weird Andrew is trying to say a lot of the time, I'll grant you, but it's dead level for the particular slope you're trying to slide on here.

9

@2,

Indeed. If the two year old child in the crib simply had been packing, he/she would've been perfectly positioned to return fire. And if those infants don't have good enough aim and dexterity to capably target their adversaries just give them a couple hand grenades.

10

Trump trying to say Black people should vote for him because someone tied to the Flint water scandal endorsed Biden? Lolol, OK.

@2 we shouldn't expect this poverty-stricken, probably addicted (as they apparently slept through their toddler shooting a rifle) individual to be accountable for their actions; Lisa Herold told me so!

12

@11: Don't stop there. How about 1000 people with $1000 instead? Is that healthier?

13

The point is, some people (not all) with great wealth do great things and create huge opportunities for millions to increase their wealth. These risks and rewards actually defines the health of a capitalist economy, not distribution algorithms.

14

The @accidentally_left twitter account got shut down, but not before it taught us to recognize and get a chuckle at the expense of prime candidate posts.

15

Charles world is such a sad place to live in but I suppose that is fitting for a gray Friday morning. Dr Fauci did not "totally write off 2021". In fact, he conservatively estimated a vaccine would be ready by Jan at the latest. This would mean that high risk individuals could be vaccinated and the death rate can begin to come down. This is GREAT news for the rest of us. With some precautions (e.g. wear.a mask) we can start to get back to a normal routine and schools and businesses can reopen. The 2022 estimate is for widespread vaccine that would then eliminate the needs for any precautions.

Not that it matter because Jayapal is going to win with 98% of the vote but the egregious conduct displayed by her opponent in no way should excuse the equally shitty conduct by those kids. Those kids are not heroes they are a bunch of entitled brats and if I saw my kids acting that way there would be some consequences coming their way.

16

@15 "The 2022 estimate is for widespread vaccine that would then eliminate the needs for any precautions."

Or in other words, for life getting back to anything resembling normal.

18

@17 I wonder how many four year olds have killed a guy walking his dog on the sidewalk across the street with a bottle of aspirin.

20

Electrical outlets are just as dangerous to toddlers as hungry uncaged boa constrictors, if not more so, which is why every home should absolutely have a boa constrictor, with a firm but not legally binding recommendation to keep it in a cage, most of the time anyway, and of course there's no penalty if you should decide not to incur the expense and inconvenience of a snakeproof enclosure, or if you forget to feed your boa constrictor sometimes.

22

@20 - zing!

24

Great report, Charles. Best in a long time. I especially liked:

blame the money changers and the Bible thumpers

(that would make a great lyric). I also liked:

Naked ladies first. Scary story next. That's how they rolled in the '70s.

26

@ 6,

I don’t want to live under neo-feudalism, which is what our dystopian techno-kleptocracy has delivered to America in the 21st century.

I’ll never fathom the peasant mentality, in which mediocre white men think that Adelson, Bezos, Gates, Tr666p, the repulsive Walton family, Zuckerbot (gag!) and every hedge funder are lords that rule over us by divine right in a purposefully unfair and racist system that’s explicitly rigged to catapult them upwards and crush the rest of us.

Unfortunately, this demi-religious belief that it’s our role to serve them and die is the norm in this country.

Screw that.

31

Dangerous objects =/= objects designed only to kill. Gun people want to rant and rave about their rights as if having them abdicates any legal responsibility. If you are going to exercise your right to own something that is only designed for the purpose of killing (or injuring at best) then that should come with an extra burden of responsibility and accountability under the law. Especially because everyone paints themselves as responsible and deserving to own a weapon, yet as we see time and time again, people somehow forget to notice when they fall out of their pockets. Or are left in luggage. Or are stolen from the back of their trucks. That doesn't really happen with aspirin or electrical outlets. Your rights end when the active endangerment of others begins.

32

This virus should be called the Conservative virus because everything that has enabled its spread and lethality -- reflexive suspicion of communal action, paranoia about government, science denialism -- originates in conservatism and has been actively cultivated by conservative forces. Conservatism has killed a quarter million people.

33

@28 Three Walton heirs -- people who have never done a day's work in their entire lives -- rank among the top 15 richest people in America. All seven are worth more than $4 billion each.

If every Walton heir passed their unearned fortune on to 7 heirs of their own, none of those subsequent inheritors would ever have to work a day in their lives, either.

The fact that a fortune has been passed on to 7 heirs instead of 1 does not mean that those heirs are not obscenely rich, nor that they have so much as lifted a finger to earn their wealth. I'm sure they're all lovely people once you get to know them, but it's ludicrous to pretend this is all perfectly fair.

34

Damn, Facts. We get it. We've heard it from you a million times. Guns = knives and power tools. Cool, great.

Are you about to ask us how anyone can have morals without one true moral code foisted upon them?

Maybe Johnny Bikerface will let us know that censorship equals tyranny.

35

@30 Right then I see no problem there, none at all. Snakes for everyone!

And I don't know maybe some snake insurance to cover that "liability" thing, whatever that is.

37

This is 3D chess, trump wants to lose the election. After Biden takes the blame for 300,000 dead Americans JFK Jr will return to save us all.

38

@32 - A conservative virus from a communist country, no less.

39

Wake up and smell the covid!! Mmmmm. I know I can. To be fair, Europe is full of its share of negligent shitheads who don't even report symptoms to their doctors and wear their noses out of their masks that slip off before getting procedures. Thanks a lot you fucking pieces of shit.

41

@36 The rich were not a static class in America 50 years ago, but it has shifted that way significantly since, in tandem with the sharp rise in wealth inequality. There is cold hard evidence for this-- some of the stronger material in Piketty's book is the summary of data showing the trend.

The names on the Forbes 400 are, increasingly, familiar ones.

Trump's heirs are already rich. This is another ongoing trend-- the wealthy now transfer much larger fractions of their fortunes before they die. Not least to dodge the creditors that might put in claims before the will can be read, which by all accounts would be a significant concern in Trump's case. The movies lie to you-- super-wealthy families today aren't sitting around in parlors holding their breath to see who gets to keep living the good life, and who has to go out and get a real job.

43

This virus should be called the Conservative virus because everything that has enabled its spread and lethality -- reflexive suspicion of communal action, paranoia about government, science denialism -- originates in conservatism and has been actively cultivated by conservative forces.

My sibling is a lesbian, hard-left, professor of grievance studies. You will not meet a more Amazon/corporate hating, intersectional/social justice loving individual on the face of this here earth. Yet what you just typed is pretty much what comes out of her very progressive mouth. Of course she only admits this to family members she considers 'less progressive than thou', she'd be drummed out of her job for being honest. It is so confusing, keeping up with these political divisions, epecially when they contradict the prevailing narrative. I am not so sure we can make a neat political divide here, although damn the media is trying very very hard to make one.

45

Bingo, @26 -- "I’ll never fathom the peasant mentality, in which mediocre white men think that Adelson, Bezos, Gates, Tr666p, the repulsive Walton family, Zuckerbot (gag!) and every hedge funder are lords that rule over us by divine right in a purposefully unfair and racist system that’s explicitly rigged to catapult them upwards and crush the rest of us.

Unfortunately, this demi-religious belief that it’s our role to serve them and die is the norm in this country." --O.A.

Dupinig the dupes now
that's just damn Good P.R.

46

Amazing to me that anyone uses the Stranger for anything other than finding out who’s playing at RCKNDY or a very specific kink partner. Where else could you even find news nowadays?

Why isn’t KOMO reporting on where to get a sloppy sandwich should be the REAL question.

47

@27: What's the difference between economics and real-world economics? Do you also think there's real-world physics as opposed to just physics?

48

@42 It's not just a matter of investment return, of r greater than g-- really the weakest aspect of Piketty's book. As he also demonstrates, it's a result of deliberate government policy, mostly in enormous cuts to the top tax rate and anti-union legislation.

Shifting industry does not guarantee shifts in familial wealth, and in fact wealth is, as I said, increasingly concentrated into a quasi-aristocracy. The marquee tech stars can dazzle, but the midlist names are, more and more, older ones. Tech has burped up a handful of truly new aristocrats, and there will always be a few, but more tech fortunes have been made by scions of already wealthy families than by go-getters from humble working-class homes, and just as often through investment rather than invention. We tend to forget that Elon Musk didn't found Tesla-- he bought it. The Gates family was wealthy before Bill, Bezos was a hedge fund manager before he opened a book store.

The Horatio Alger myth just keeps getting hollower with every passing year.

49

I would just like to remind everyone that it's the SYSTEM that creates the wealth disparity, not billionaires.

Let's try this thought experiment. Poor people are fucking everything up. Poor people suck. The majority of poor (white) people vote for Trump. Poor people are stupid - they consistently vote against their own self interests, AND they vote against what's best for society. Poor people are the reason we can't have nice things in public spaces. Poor people don't take responsibility for anything. Poor people are the reason for most of our problems.

54

@46 Ah, man, why you gotta bring up RKCNDY?! RIP

56

I would just like to remind everyone that it's the SYSTEM that creates the wealth disparity, not billionaires.

Let's try this thought experiment. Poor people are fucking everything up. Poor people suck. The majority of poor (white) people vote for Trump. Poor people are stupid - they consistently vote against their own self interests, AND they vote against what's best for society. Poor people are the reason we can't have nice things in public spaces. Poor people don't take responsibility for anything. Poor people are the reason for most of our problems.

@51 Prof, all well said, until "The multi-billionaire with few exceptions HAS to believe — and has to convince you to believe — that poverty is a moral flaw... that is why the multi-billionaire class should either meet their moral obligations or, if not, cease to exist if civilization is ever to advance..."

You completely lost me there. What you're identifying is that most multi-billionaires (and multi-millionaires) are republicans, (a lot of libertarians), or fiscally conservative (at the expense of almost anything else), and the economic system created by such people.

If I was given a billion dollars, I wouldn't become a republican asshole, I wouldn't spend my time trying to figure out how to get even richer or fucking over the less fortunate. I'd retire and spend my days in leisurely and philanthropic pursuits.

Bezos wasn't some "great guy" who got a billion dollars and became an asshole. He got a billion dollars because the system allowed him to do what he wanted to do, and he was willing to do it (amongst many other things).

From last count, I think I read there are around 600 billionaires in this country? While money provides them more than one vote, it does not provides them the tens of millions of votes for Republicans every election cycle. That would be republicans, rich or poor.

57

@56, whoops, sorry, didn't mean to include my previous post

60

@55 Prof, so why limit it at billionaires? How about a hundred million? That will buy a $600/hr lobbyist. How about ten million?

What's absurd is equating being wealthy with being a horrible person. These are horrible people whether they're rich, poor, white or black.

Why is it so important to TS and a lot of the commentors here that billionairs are shitty people that shouldn't be allowed to have a billion dollars. If you were to eliminate the 600 billionaires in this country tomorrow, but didn't change the system that created them, do you honestly think ANYTHING would be better?

If Bezos dies in a plane crash tomorrow, do you think Amazon wills suddenly start treating their employees better?

61

Points for RKCNDY reference.

The thing that started the demise was a staff guy getting popped on a Fed weapons beef, speaking of guns. That guy rolled on the grow op and the rest as they say is history.

62

@60 Prof, "Otherwise its like saying well, it's not the tumor that's killing you but the entire concept of cancer. So let's not remove the tumor and instead focus on a cure for cancer."

Again, absolutely agree with the first part - we just disagree about who's protecting and guarding the system. That's an interesting analogy. The difference seems to be that you're equating billionaires as the tumor; I wouldn't - I would equate Republicans as the tumor.

66

@58

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a1LV1IeG8U

68

@65 Prof, again agree everything except for "The third thing you do is aggressively go after specific multi-billionaires for monopolistic practices, racketeering, labor violations. Apply pressure force compromises so you can... "

No, you don't go after billionaires. You go after the laws (and the lawmakers) that allow for monopolistic practices, racketeering..."

Maybe this is a case of semantics, I don't know. Again, by your measure, what is the threshold where having wealth = being a bad person?

I'll never have a billion dollars or even 10 million dollars. Why this is important to me is the way in which we go about changing the system. We have the same end goal. I just feel that attacking "billionaires" is a self-defeating way of going about it, because even the dumbfucks see the logic inconsistency, and that only hurts actually getting (some of) those same dumbfucks to support changing the system.

69

@65 Prof, 68, and I just re-read what I quoted, and realize we're now discussing "specific" billionaires... okay, that's progress. Let's discuss those specific people and what they are doing, rather than reducing this down to "billionaires" are the REASON for our problems. Billionaires (in many cases) are a SYMPTOM of our problems.

71

@70 Prof, the issue with these analogies you keep using is that internal bleeding is ALWAYS bad. There is no threshold where internal bleeding is good and then becomes bad.

Being wealthy is not good or bad - it's how that wealth is used.

Getting rid of Rupert Murdoch doesn't solve the Fox News problem. Getting rid of billionaires does not solve the problem. Suggesting it does will only lead to "well, that didn't really fix anything" once you do. Then what?

Anyway, I still love your comments - always look forward to them. Have a great weekend.

72

@58,

"What the object is designed for, or its primary use, (which is a debatable) is irrelevant..."

It's not debatable, firearms were designed to fuck shit up, namely people. Here = some fax to refute UR point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_firearm

https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/inventions/who-invented-the-first-gun.htm

Any chance you'll break form here and admit to being wrong for a change? I've got a gigantic wager on "no."

74

Please show some respect for our lovely and talented First Lady! In Melanie's own words...

"I come to America with genius Visa, to help America better. First I do the Racist Birther. Then I make the BeBest! So...BeBest every America! The peoples ask me, who do I vote? I might vote the Tя☭mp, that's who!"

75

@58 Hey, buddy. YOU live next to him then because I VALUE MY LIFE MORE THAN YOU VALUE YOURS.

Thanks to a 4 year old and his negligent parent, for 30 minutes out of my life while the police sorted this out, I had NO IDEA IF MORE SHOTS WERE GOING TO BE RANDOMLY COMING OUT OF THAT TRAILER. I thought, "two shots, two kids live there, oh my God what did dad do?!?!" It was horrible.

When an AK47 is being fired from inside the trailer next to YOU as this child did to me in Sitka..... I can tell you it is a HELLUVA LOT DIFFERENT than if the child had a knife in the house and injured himself. A knife would NOT pass through the wall. PERIOD. LETHALITY/THREAT TO INNOCENT PARTIES IS ACCOUNTED FOR IN CASES LIKE THESE, AT LEAST IN STATES THAT WANT TO PRESERVE A BYSTANDER'S RIGHT TO LIFE.

Ps, buddy, you can't sue poverty. But, you CAN make him pay with jail time, and then hopefully get him back on track with mandatory volunteer time/personal or substance abuse counseling/home visits after release, and removing his right to possess a weapon again, with clearly defined charges for any additional offenses.

Pps, when you run someone over in a car (or similar situation), you get charged with a high level misdemeanor all the way through manslaughter depending on the outcome to innocent bystanders. You don't just pay for damages and life goes back to normal - you get a permanent record of the event that is, hopefully, caught on most background checks for housing, employment or legal purchase of a weapon in the future.

Until your life is on the line, please keep your opinion to yourself. I am speaking from direct experience... what is your personal experience with this issue?


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