Raptors says a trip to the white house is a "hard no"

[305Baller]

If you're not trolling, most of the team is born/from the United States, playing in the National Basketball Association.

who cares. the canadian anthem is played at their games. its a canadian team funded by canadian tax dollars and the global economic elite.

maybe they should visit the UN

[ralph_i_el]

Education =/= intelligence

Academia is pretty much full of retards these days who can't accomplish anything in the private sector - hence their need to try and control the culture through public schools.

Also, tons of blacks and hispanics vote democrat. Wonder what the education is like there?

The closest you've been to academia is probably watching Jordan Peterson videos on YouTube.

[ralph_i_el]

The land wasn't invented by the government either. Yes, the government has a legitimate function of enforcing deeds etc. but they aren't entitled to the benefits the land produces. And the constitution doesn't give rights - it protects them as those rights are natural rights.

I know Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith talked about this but that was in a time where there were no income taxes. Today there are so estate taxes are immoral and unethical. Also, plenty of countries in the world don't have estate taxes and get on fine. To me, you should be able to have the freedom to choose what happens with your money - not the government. This dumb idea that they just hoard their money and swim in it like ducktales is ridiculous.

And by stating that "they didn't earn their money and didn't work" and justifies taking their money is actually legislating morality and the individual which is something you said democrats don't do. And you don't list any of the "obvious problems"? Can you please tell me what they are?

Russia was a shit hole dude - they built a wall to keep people in because people wanted to leave. You can believe what you want.

Who is entitled to the benefits of the land then? What makes it yours and not mine?

"Natural Rights" only exist so far as they are enforced.

Obvious problems with the huge wealth disparities:

1. Concentrated wealth allows a few very wealthy people to control the government through corruption. The US government gives tax breaks and subsidies equal to the total amount of outstanding student debt in the US....EVERY YEAR.

2. Monopolies and massive private equity firms decrease competition in the economy. Competition to provide cheaper and higher quality goods is the only aspect of capitalism that benefits people who don't own capital resources.

3. Goods and services are produced in accordance with supply and demand. The concept of "consumer sovereignty" is defined as "the situation in an economy where the desires and needs of consumers control the output of producers". However, these desires only impact what is produced in relation to the purchasing power of different classes of consumers. Put simply, when a small amount of people control a huge amount of wealth, the economy will produce goods and services aimed at those wealthy people. Less labor is dedicated to producing basketballs, more labor is dedicated to producing Bugattis.


We have the lowest tax rates in a hundred years of US history right now. The top tax rate was double this in the 70's. About 1.5x this in the 80's. It was 90% in the 40's and 50's. Back then about 60% of wealth went to workers, and 40% went to owners of capital. Now in America, 60% of income goes to owners and 40% goes to workers. An estimated 40% of all wealth is inherited, not earned. Workers haven't had a sustained increase in real wages since the early 80's. This is all bad.

[ralph_i_el]

I think you guys have me mistaken for some big government lib, and I'm not.

Governments are institutions who we allow to have a monopoly on legitimate violence. That's their purpose.

Violence is at the heart of ownership. What stops your land from being my land is the threat of violence. Without a government to enforce a set of laws, backed up by violence, ownership beyond personal property is impossible.

As long as governments exist, they will be enforcing laws with violence. If there must be ownership of resources, then there must be government. The question is, who the government represents.

Right now in America our government represents the interests of the rich, and wants to make it easier for them to gain control over more resources. I'd rather a government that shifted the balance back to the masses. Full-time workers in a lot of other countries earn more money than American workers.

What would that look like? Vastly increasing taxes on annual income over a few million dollars. Increasing the minimum wage. Enforcing anti-trust laws (already on the books) to break up big banks, big telecom companies, Disney etc etc...

[MaxPlayer]

I think you guys have me mistaken for some big government lib, and I'm not.

Governments are institutions who we allow to have a monopoly on legitimate violence. That's their purpose.

Violence is at the heart of ownership. What stops your land from being my land is the threat of violence. Without a government to enforce a set of laws, backed up by violence, ownership beyond personal property is impossible.

As long as governments exist, they will be enforcing laws with violence. If there must be ownership of resources, then there must be government. The question is, who the government represents.

Right now in America our government represents the interests of the rich, and wants to make it easier for them to gain control over more resources. I'd rather a government that shifted the balance back to the masses. Full-time workers in a lot of other countries earn more money than American workers.

What would that look like? Vastly increasing taxes on annual income over a few million dollars. Increasing the minimum wage. Enforcing anti-trust laws (already on the books) to break up big banks, big telecom companies, Disney etc etc...

So, you recognize that the rich have been systematically more successful at co-opting government for their own ends, and you want to fix this by doing a bunch of things that expand the power of that same government.

Not sure this is a good approach.

[vidsmart]

Now imagine a white player saying no if Obama was in office

They would've labelled him a racist bigot and threw the book at him.

You mean like Tom Brady? Or the many other white champions who did not go?

[ralph_i_el]

So, you recognize that the rich have been systematically more successful at co-opting government for their own ends, and you want to fix this by doing a bunch of things that expand the power of that same government.

Not sure this is a good approach.

I see it as using the power of government to decrease the power of the rich.

I'd like to decrease the power of that government by decreasing military operations and decriminalizing drugs.

The most disruptive and "big government" thing we do is lock up 2.3 million people at a time. We have the highest prison population by sheer numbers and by percentage of citizens. Almost half a million of those people haven't had trials, but can't afford bail. The number one reason (by a huge margin) people are in jail is for drug possession.

[TheCorporation]

The closest you've been to academia is probably watching Jordan Peterson videos on YouTube.

Jordan Peterson the goat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkW1mzURnqU

[poido123]

The closest you've been to academia is probably watching Jordan Peterson videos on YouTube.

Peterson is the man. Teaches babies like on this site how to be personally responsible for their lives. Unfortunately, kids here would rather take advice and action from lebron 😑

As for this trump snubbing, I don

[poido123]

I see it as using the power of government to decrease the power of the rich.

I'd like to decrease the power of that government by decreasing military operations and decriminalizing drugs.

The most disruptive and "big government" thing we do is lock up 2.3 million people at a time. We have the highest prison population by sheer numbers and by percentage of citizens. Almost half a million of those people haven't had trials, but can't afford bail. The number one reason (by a huge margin) people are in jail is for drug possession.

Prison is big business. Good luck stopping that.

[MaxPlayer]

[QUOTE=poido123]Peterson is the man. Teaches babies like on this site how to be personally responsible for their lives. Unfortunately, kids here would rather take advice and action from lebron 😑

As for this trump snubbing, I don

[red1]

[QUOTE=poido123]Peterson is the man. Teaches babies like on this site how to be personally responsible for their lives. Unfortunately, kids here would rather take advice and action from lebron 😑

As for this trump snubbing, I don

[poido123]

This post seems a little odd in light of the fact that Trump's rhetoric is extremely "tribalist" and repeatedly stresses "us vs them." He frames nearly every issue, even things as benign as trade, as some sort of struggle between "us" (the United States) and some nefarious foreigner.

Trump simply shined a light on society

[poido123]

holy shit its poido aka pedo long-time no see



been an eventful year dude we da champs you can still sukk my dikk fam

Pedo 😂

I bring love, not hate. That election period got out of hand 👀

[red1]

Pedo 😂

I bring love, not hate. That election period got out of hand 👀

sorry man that was just the ol' nickname. I haven't really been paying attention to elections but I watched a lot of playoff games saw my team win 16 games this postseason in fact.




All of these games are taking a toll I'm glad that there's an offseason it's good to have a break from all this winning.