The Giant Pool Of Money. Implications

It isn't who benefits from corporate profits that matters. It's who benefits from taxes. The 90+% use the roads most, have the most children in schools, etc. Why should they be beholden to a bunch of rich bastards for those things? Why not give them the dignity of paying their own way? Your insistence on being above the working class pisses me off. No, I don't. The working class is more overburdened than the middle class.

So you would have it that there were only two classes? Rich and working?

Somehow I missed this the first time through:Ringo stated How he could come to that conclusion, when the 0.01% are EXACTLY the ones benefiting.Then Phat asks: That IS what the 0.01% want. Even of the 2% below them.Edited by xongsmith, : river city P

Life isn't fair, but offering minimum wage for a menial job is.

Sure, but it can mean more than that too. That's business - if you're in a position where you cannot negotiate then that is your fault not your potential employer's. I understand that you think he wasn't talking about physical coercion...I haven't heard from him about it, he just acknowledge my reply. I agree with you, but I don't know what Phat meant - so I'm still lost on him.Also, I wouldn't use the word force in that context, so no, I'm not really on board with the semantics. With the principle, sure, do what you gotta do.

How do you distinguish yourself from the working class?

But they're not.You should have read the whole post: It's who benefits from the taxes that matters. Who drives on the roads? Or rides buses on the roads or bicyles on the roads or walks on the roads? Who sends their children to the schools? Who uses the libraries? Who uses the sewers?Edited by ringo, : Removed superfluous words and words.

But minimum wages aren't just for "menial" jobs. They're for wherever the employer can get away with exploiting his workers. And they bring all wages down.

I have no debt

I have a savings account

I make more than I need to live on

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Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
"as long as chance rules, God is an anachronism."~Arthur Koestler

Well that's English for you. Fortunately the context of a word is helpful in understanding its usage. I haven't heard Phat incite violence before, and given he was talking about unionising, it seems pretty clear what it meant in its context. It's the fault of neither, it's just the nature of the system. Well he 'Cheered' my post, seems like endorsement that I had the correct interpretation of his words to me. My interpretation was consistent with his character, and his other comments on this subject. I think I have a good case that he was using the word 'force' just like most other English speakers do all the time. When communicating with English speakers you still need to anticipate that they may use words differently than you. Besides which:

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And being forced to face shutting your business down or else having to do something as benign as baking a cake (that you're going to get paid for), isn't as bad as telling someone that you won't sell them that cake because they belong to a protected class.

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Message 569

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By maybe-believing? Nah, you're just trying to force your usage again.

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Message 447

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It's like if we were coworkers and every time we had a minor disagreement about something you ran to the boss to get them to implement a decision so you could force me to comply with your way.

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Message 346

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I'm not saying that the public options shouldn't exist, I just don't like being demonized for having the opinion of not wanting to be forced into them.

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Message 37

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The women who say they want to perpetuate it have been coerced by the patriarchal societies that they are forced to live with.

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Message 757

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You can be forced to overcome your addiction without changing your mind.

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if I'm forced to make a decision and the best means available aren't enough for me to consider my thoughts critically, then I don't call that critical thinking even if the best I can do at the time.

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Message 218But either way - I think the most natural and obvious reading of Phat is one of talking about making someone do something against their will using peaceful means such as cooperating with one another and selective witholding of labour. Phat's 'cheer' seems to concur. English seems to be on my side. As do some of your own previous posts.

And why is that? Do you work harder than the non-union cashier at the supermarket down the street?

Because I belong to a union, thank God! Not necessarily. What difference does it make? We would invite them to join the union also, except that their employer tries to actively prevent us from talking with them about it.If all of the cashiers were in the union, it would be the same as the working class uniting with the middle class, which is apparently what you hope to achieve.Without a union, the employers simply continue to hire more help at cheap-as-possible rates and fire them rather than promote them excepting the few who become managers.We have discussed unionism before. Our last contract was, in fact, one of the top grocery contracts negotiated in the entire country. We helped bring the bottom closer to the top wage bracket. The only sad and telling thing was that few of the workers even bothered to vote.Today's generation only looks to the paycheck at the moment rather than planning long term for their livelihood and health care, it seems.

Now on this, I can agree. Offering minimum wage for any job is fair.
It is also fair for the labor market to organize and to negotiate a higher wage.But the combination of minimum wages, and "right to work" laws that deny the ability for workers to negotiate is an unfair combination. It is particularly so when society has to pick up the difference by offering things like SNAP to employees.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Holy shit, you dug up posts of mine from over three years ago?Wait a minute... Did you query the database directly or something? Select all messages submitted by me that contain the word force?
Or did you find that through Google?'Cause if you're using database administrator privileges to try to score debate points against me then I'm going to stop replying to you. Sure, this context is workers forcing their employers to share wealth. I never thought that Phat meant inciting violence, but his meaning isn't that clear to me. Cool, fault is a strong word - I meant that it is "more your fault than there's"; not in the sense that you alone are solely culpable, but in the sense that the onus is on you to establish your position in a negotiation and not your employer's. Okay. Oh, I hadn't seen that. I can accept that you've accurately reflected Phat's meaning. Mostly? It totally depends on the context... I get that we need to be speaking the same language, but I don't have to use a word in a way that I don't want to.In that sense, if you want to talk about forcing the employers, then no I'm not on board. So first off, that was weird - digging up old shit like that.Secondly, I do try to be consistent within a thread, but not so much across threads.
And I am capable of changing my mind, so I wouldn't expect consistency over time on the order of years.Now, context is important, and I'm gonna address this, but before I do:When I talk about force, I look at it in the sense of consent. If it is consensual, then I prolly won't have a problem with it. If it isn't, then I prolly will. It's about people having to go against their will, not having a choice in the matter, it being involuntary, when it starts becoming more like coercion than convincing - that's when I don't like it.Sure, the word can be used to describe consensual and voluntary actions - I just prefer not to use it that way.So: The broader context is this:

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You mentioned opposing "forcing businesses to serve gay people" as being a vileness, but honestly I think that point is more moot than mine.

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Obviously, nobody is going to force people to bake cakes. And being forced to face shutting your business down or else having to do something as benign as baking a cake (that you're going to get paid for), isn't as bad as telling someone that you won't sell them that cake because they belong to a protected class.

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Forced, as in "against their will", to choose between X and Y. This is consistent with my current usage.Further context:

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And even if they do have to stop participating and not have their doors open to everyone, because they can't serve the gays, then they're still not actually forced into shutting down their business, because they can still go the members-only route.

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Opening up your doors to everyone doesn't mean that the people can't try to make your business unsuccessful. If you're being a dick then I get to cuss you out loudly on my way out the door.

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I agree that going the legal route to shut the business down is pussy way to go about it, though. But I see where they're coming from.

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Going the legal route of making these business serve people against their will, that is, forcing them to do it is worse than talking to them about it in person and persuading them that they should serve the people willingly, that is, convincing them to do it.Now, you could say that convincing them forced them to do it - but that is just not how I want to use that word because I think the distinction is important. The broader context of that, including from previous messages is: In that context, the other person was trying to prevent me, against my will, from use the phrase "belief in god" as something other than being binary. So yeah, force. That broader context: Again, I'm against making somebody do something against their will instead of persuading them to want to do it. From that same message:

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I suspect you folks on the left realize that you can't really win the hearts and minds of those with different opinions than yours', so you're so big on public enterprises because know that the only way to get them on board is by force through government. I consider that immoral.

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Again, I'm arguing against making poeple do something against their will instead of convincing them to do it willingly. Okay, that one I did use the word more loosely - not typical of me tho. No link to context, not sure - I was prolly thinking something along the lines of loosing access to the substance, which would force you against your will to quit. Context: In the hypothetical situation, you are literally forced against your will to make a decision - that is consistent with my usage not yours. That's fine - as I said: If you're "forcing" people by negotiating, then to me that's just doing business. It's when you start getting into coercion that I start having a problem with it.So regarding "We need to force these corporations to share more of the wealth!", no, I'm still not on board. I think it would be better to persuade them to willingly share the wealth over forcing them to do it. That's the most convincing evidence. I disagree that my previous posts are on your side. Regarding English, a wise man told me:

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When communicating with English speakers you still need to anticipate that they may use words differently than you.

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Next time you dig up old shit from over 3 years ago I'm not gonna reply to it so if that's what you're looking for then don't waste your time.

I totally and fully agree! Negotiations involve both sides. There is no onus on any one side. Are you anti union, then? Because we will call a strike if necessary to protect our position. The alternative is to accept less than what we collectively determine our value to be. We prefer negotiations and voluntary compliance but will use some force(non-violent) if necessary. After all, nobody gets to tell the CEO's what to pay themselves!