Your Girlfriend ( your fiancee ) voted for Obama so are you saying she's a libtard, a spout liberal nonsense, dickless Obamabots, toxic, greedy parasite, idiot etc etc ??? or should anyone of us (who didn't vote for Obama) should we say all this terrible craps about her just because she voted for Obama ???? The answer is "NO" because you respect her right and freedom to vote according to her heart and even your girlfriend voted for Obama I truly believe she is a wonderful caring person , a fantastic girfriend, a loving mother to all her kids and to other children, a good wife and she might even has a Phd in English. ( I know my english is terrible and bad poetry etc unlike your girlfriend who can write beautiful poetry like maya angelou. ) I don't like Obama but I don't dislike or hate those people who voted for him because it's their rights to vote !!! Giving 10k per year is not a lot of money maybe to you is a big amount! I think Tsing Tao is doing much better than you financially so he can afford to donate/give 10k is not a big deal to him. 377OHMS - You are not a stupid guy, by now you should be able to tell I am Not trendlover! I don't want to make enemy with you because I believe deep in your heart you are a nice guy! Hope you have a wonderful happy Thanksgiving with your girlfriend, your kids and your parents.
Who are you to say what is virtuous and what is not? The bottom line is every human being operates to obtain some sense of self satisfaction, for some people, like Mother Teresa that meant feeding starving people, you will find many atheists on this site like Freethinker who believe she was evil. Fact of the matter is she helped feed many starving people, and she did it to "satisfy her ego" and gain some sense of satisfaction. Who are you to say Tsing Tao's Goals were any less virtuous than anyone elses? Tsing Tao was hoping for an an environment whereby the most people could be the most productive, which would in turn create an environment best suited to help the down trodden. Yes, I agree with you, we are living in the most priviledged era in history, and why exactly do you think it is bad to want the following generations, and everyone else living on this planet to live in that exact same way? The fact of the matter is you have decided on a political mindset, which you deem to be "virtuous" and you think that people like Tsing Tao, or libertariansin general are selfish, because we do not believe in simply handing things out, in order to achieve the ultimate goal of enriching EVERYONES lives. In our eyes, The more people who are enriched in America, the more people who will be helped at home, and abroad, for libertarians it all goes back to the fable "teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime, feed a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Once again, who are you to question the virtue of his decision? Maybe he thought that the best way to help everyone in this country was to make people more self reliant. If he wants to see the world become a certain way, whereby everyone on earth will be able to survive, based solely on their own prowess, how is that a selfish decision? Is buffets son, who goes down to south america to teach people how to farm selfish for doing this while his dad refuses to stroke a cheque? Would it do more good for Buffet to pay 4 billion dollars for food for one year, send it down in crates, then give nothign the next year? does this mean that we shouldnt want/expect the best for those of us around us? does that mean we should just lay down when something happens that will cause suffering to millions, and say screw it, someoen else is worse off, so why would i complain. This is garbage, it is our expectation and desire as humans to have something better that has caused us to evolve like no other species on planet earth, if we were just to lay down and accept the fact that someone else is worse off every time something bad happens, where would we be as a species? Based on your post, you seem to have decided that left wing ideology is virtuous, so why dont you show us all the examples, of where Communism, or socialism has created a better overall standard of living than that in the U.S.A......
I agree everyone operates to get some self-satisfaction. The difference is what conduct generates that satisfaction. A serial killer may get satisfaction from the struggles just before death of a young girl he is torturing and raping; a hero may get satisfaction risking their life or reputation to better the condition of their fellow humans. The latter is admirable and the former is despicable. TT is wilfully opting out of something moderately good for petty, egotistical and selfish reasons - that he didn't get the election result he wanted. It's the adult equivalent of a baby throwing its toys out of the pram. Note that he didn't write a post of disappointment, and then resolve to continue the (to him) noble fight for whatever ideals he values. He wrote that he was giving up in despair, because the situation was just too hopeless, people too stupid - and deciding just to look out for himself and fellow embittered curmudgeons. Imagine an atheist or a pro-freedom woman in Iran giving up because the situation was too hopeless and people too stupid - such a person would have far more justifiable grounds, but it would still be a nihilistic decision, the dishonourable act of a quitter. It is not his moral values that are the problem, it's his decision to quit, to do so for purely selfish reasons, and to do so over such trivial setbacks and so-called 'problems'. I'm a libertarian, so your comments on that are misplaced. In fact, you argue for making things better, which I fully agree with - yet TT is committing to the opposite, he is committing to abandoning the struggle for progress. So his decision - to give up - is diametrically opposed to your own views.
Libertarian? Hardly. The lefts seems genuinely alarmed at the widespread reaction expressed by many conservatives who have decided to simply leave the field. Some will fight against increased taxes by not complying with the new regulations, some by withdrawing money normally given to society voluntarily as charity, some by actually leaving the country and some by joining in the looting. It is as though the left expected the right to just continue fighting in the next round and receive the next set of blows like a boxer who is going to lose by decision. They seem to have expected the right to throw up its hands and pull out the checkbook and for businesses and individuals to see that they've been defeated and so agree to pay for it all even if reluctantly. Its a composite cry going out from every liberal quarter, "It isn't fair!". Papa John's is just supposed to agree to pay for healthcare for every employee even if it bankrupts the company. Individuals are supposed to just agree to accept lower take-home pay and conservative politicians are supposed to stop all resistance to Obama's polices across the board. "We won". Liberals can't believe a man would react by reducing his instinct towards charity and concentrating on his family and so turn a cold shoulder to those who voted to take food off of his family's table. I didn't anticipate this naive reaction. Now we hear the left say that people who won't pay the bill for socialism aren't moral, the businesses who won't agree to eat the cost of the welfare state are greedy and we are all quitters at heart. And that is just days after the election. Wait until the massive waves of layoff and termination notices starts. When entire industries realize that they cannot stay in business and doctors, nurses and medical device manufacturers retire, change careers or leave the country the liberals are going to go berserk. There will probably be all kinds of regulations introduced that prevent businesses and individuals from leaving for tax purposes. If the left is this indignant already imagine the howl that will go up when tax revenue actually decreases in the face of increased tax rates. The government is going to end up receiving less money and the deficit will grow faster than it did with the Bush tax cuts in place. The defense cuts in the "fiscal cliff" will throw hundreds of thousands of people onto unemployment and welfare. The number of people applying for food and utility assistance will explode. A few more body blows like this and we're going to end up in a Great Depression.
However this plays out, imo the main point is the mood of the coountry. The psychological health of the country. There is no light at the end of the tunnel, no relief in sight, no hope of improvement in the short term. There are no prospects of more income down the road, relief from everyday expenses that are mounting each and everyday. If you lost your job, the day of reckoning has a date when the money runs out.
Yes... One that has us screwed, blued, and tattooed. And wonder what the Chinese will do when we default? Don't think they'll be very nice about it...
"(...) bitterness, instead of a form of disillusionment, is really the refusal to give up your childhood illusions of importance. Ignored instead of welcomed by the world, you fault the world as blind and evil in order not to fault yourself as naïve. Bitterness is a childâs coddling narcissism within the context of an adultâs harsh life. Instead, I know that the world only tramples me as a street crowd does an earthworm â not out of malice or stupidity, but because no one sees it. Thus my pain is not to feel wrongly slighted, but to feel rightly slighted. There must be a Copernican revolution of the self. Instead of pointlessly cursing the sun to go around me, my chance of contentment is learning to orbit, being the worldâs audience instead of demanding the world be mine. If the world is a stage, then everyoneâs an extra, acting minor roles in simultaneous scenes in which no one has the lead. With so much happening, society is poorly made to satisfy pride, but well made to satisfy interest, if we will only let go of our vanity and join the swirl of activity."