RC
RC's JournalThe government provides needed services more efficiently than private business can.
That is a fact you can see in your own bank account.
These services still cost money though. Think of emergency services as insurance. You pay for insurance, whether you use that insurance or not, correct? Well, think of government services the same way.
For the people themselves providing those services, those are paying jobs. Jobs, the same as in the private sector. They pay taxes, social security, retirement. Pay rent/mortgage, the same as people in the private sector. The only real difference is they work for the local, state or federal government.
Government services do not need to make a profit. They do not need a very highly paid CEO, bonuses, stocks and bond holders to keep in mind. Prime time advertizing, etc. All this has to be paid for by the customer. So how can private enterprise even compete with keeping the costs down.
The fact is they can't. Not only that, they won't because management keeps going after that ever more profit, so they can pay themselves even more.
Think of our health care insurance as the worst case example here.
Privatization = Profitization.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021667137
It really is that simple.
Oh, really?
Are you sure about that? Because I graduated high school by the time the generation X came along and have never been any kind of Right wing anything.
From my stand point, based on history, PC Police types come across as being more the authoritarian bully type, who do their best work with backup or in groups against their target. That is a conservative lock step characteristic.
Notice the pile-one and threads in META.
Another conservative characteristic is to couple whatever it is they don't like to something worse and try to make them somehow equivalent. Like taking any word used to describe one women in an unflattering way, to make it simultaneously apply all woman anywhere and then to compare that word to something far worse, such as the hate and racism of slavery, as if they were somehow the same. That dilutes the impact of the very real hate and racism generated by slavery. Stop it. There is no real comparison.
That's like saying allowing Gay Marriage will legalize marrying your dog, or some such bullshit.
Instead of banning words as the problem, work on the real problems of unequal pay, unaffordable day care, the glass ceiling, attacks on reproductive rights, lack of affordable medical care, and a whole long list of inequalities that need to be corrected. Correct all these and the word use problems you have, will go away on its own.
The Word Police are a distraction and in fact makes the very real problems, as stated above, worse by generating discord with those they disagree with, instead of working together to right the obvious wrongs.
"offensive jerks" being defined as:
"Anyone against banning words as a solution to the actual problem - If any."
Words are not the problem. Words are just a means of communication.
The mind set of the person using them, may be a problem. Or quite often around here, the mind set of the reader/listener can be closer to the real problem. A means of authoritarian based bullying.
"Repulsive expression"?
What? Disagreeing with the word police is repulsive expression? Must be because I don't normally use the words in the ever growing secret list, that set the PC off around here anyway. So what's left but that definition?
BTY, please explain how using unflattering labeling of one person because of their less than stellar actions/political affiliations, etc., is an affront to any and everyone else that can be in anyway tied to some characteristic of that one person in question?
"
Name of one person) is/has a (insert characteristic), so therefore (insert group(s) with this characteristic) everywhere are automatically included in this affront to this one person..."
That is what I don't buy.
What you are really saying is that you have a right not to be personally rankled, by whatever words it is that you decide you don't like. But because I may disagree with you, your rules against words you don't like, also have to apply to me anyway, whether I agree or not. Got it.
Never mind my list is different than yours and I am more tolerant on hearing them, as is being a Liberal/Progressive would dictate.
We are killing our planet with our shear numbers.
We don't care where our energy comes from. As long as it is not within sight of us, our homes. Nature is polluted/destroyed as a unavoidable consequence of procuring energy, in any case.
Nothing for our children? Who cares, we got ours.
Rape of the land? Oh, hell No! Murder of the land is more like it! No matter what we do, that land cannot really be restored. Species driven to extinction can not be restored.
We even have people that want to tap into Old Faithful for geothermal energy. Come on now, is nothing sacred? Besides we humans, that is?
We remove mountain tops and fill in the valleys with the unwanted toxic rubble.
We cover over pristine land with solar panels. Why not, nobody lives there anyway, except a few mice and cacti?
We devastate thousand year old forests to build wind farms, with a maximum life of 15 to 20 years.
We build huge dams, flooding hundred of thousands of acres. Stopping the migration of fish and stressing the chain of life that depend on those fish migrations.
We strip mine hundreds of thousands of acres of previously pristine land, to get at a toxic sludge that has to be heated and diluted, just to get it out of the rock that was dug out of the ground.
There is no such thing as a "Clean Energy Source". One way or another, they all have their costs on nature. Our arrogance, multiplied by our ever increasing numbers, are killing most other life on the only home we can ever know. We have become just another weed species, along with rats, crabgrass and dandelions.
The root cause of the energy problem is that our numbers have increased well passed the numbers our planet can safely support and we are getting desperate in our attempts at denying the obvious.
Not only do you miss the point, you don't even see yourself in your own post.
Nobody is using the ""N" word, the "C" word, or the "Q" slurs..." Whatever the "Q" slurs are. Whenever this subject comes up, out comes the "N" word, as if we can't say "Hello" without it.
You are diddling with the symptoms, in any case. And adding to the problem you say you are fighting against, with your bigoted word banning.
Words are not the problem. Ban a word and another, or several others, will take it's place - for you to happily try to ban in turn. Why do you think there are whole strings of words applying to the same subject, when the original, age old problem of race or sexism or whatever, still exists?
This is exactly like our war on terror, no end in sight. Kill a terrorist and a dozen more will spring up from their friends, relatives, etc. of the dead, so called terrorist. Why was he a terrorist? Because we say so and he is dead. The same goes for killing words. More words, synonyms of the dead word, will take their place, because those words were useful.
Why is banning words counter productive? Because nothing is being done about the mindset behind using bigoted words in the first place! Let me repeat that; "Because nothing is being done about the mindset behind using bigoted words in the first place!" That is where the PC has gone wrong and even off the tracks.
The PC are using terrorist tactics, to terrorize others into behaving as those PC wish those others (read, "not us"
to behave.
Being PC isn't about making the world a better place. Being PC is about control. Being PC is about bullying and harassing and intimidating others you disagree with, into either conformity or silence.
BTY, being PC is not being Liberal or Progressive. Real Liberals and Progressives know you can't fix problems by hiding the symptoms. That is a Right-wing mime. Banning words is nothing more than an attempt at covering over the symptoms.
Sorry Vanje, but I have more respect for people than to do what you suggest.
What is so different between your post above and your hidden post and and the mindset you are railing against? Respect for others, or lack of same, correct? Not a good way to show by example.
You complain against mere words, applying the disrespect label to all words YOU decide YOU don't like. Or you decide for others that they don't like.
Meaning, context, usage, meaning, being of minor concern. For you, the word itself is the problem and not the mindset behind them.
I don't see words themselves as being the problem. It is the mindset of the speaker vs the listener. The subject matter, context, etc.
My complaint is against people who are disrespectful, condescending and the bullying of others under the guise of others being disrespectful, when it is quite obvious what they, the PC really want, is for everyone else to agree with them (the PC) and their views, and meekly submit. It's the use of use of bullying and intimidation and disrespect the PC have for differing views of others here.
For the PC, there is no end to the list of words they can decide they want banned. Ban one, find another, ban that. They can go on ambushing for years, banning word after word, shutting down/derailing discussions, intimidating, bullying others into silence, as their word list gets ever longer.
In other words the PC are guilty of the exact same disrespect they accuse others of.
How are your posts I mentioned here not that?
In Federal elections, beefed up Federal law needs to be followed.
There needs to be stringent rules and regulations on any voting/vote counting machines used in Federal elections. Private ownership needs to be forbidden. The maintenance and programing of any machines used in voting or counting votes, needs to be heavily supervised. The programing standardized and open sourced. The machines themselves need to be built to rigid standards. If those same companies can build ATM's and Los Vegas slot machines that can stand the rigid specs, why can't they do the same with voting machines?
Since these machines can also be used on local and State elections, this would also make those elections more foolproof.
Exit polls need to be reinstated. Anything more than a statical deviation between the vote count and the exit poll results, needs to be investigated.
Let other countries supervise our elections, as we insist we have the right to do in other countries.
Long prison terms for the miscreants engaged in election fraud. Break the generation to generation family organized Election fraud/crime so, prevalent in this country, since before 2000.
That's the way I read that.
Why do so many here think they can tell the rest of DU what should and should not be?
Have they forgotten the meaning of Social? Have they ever really known? They are acting more as self-appointed authoritative, instead of just another member with an opinon.
Has the awesome power of the Alert and of the Juror gone to their heads? 
What I see in this particular attempted word banning is irony.
I am supposed to be offended just on someone say so? Sorry, I'm not conservative enough to go along. I refuse to be bullied here and that is what this is. PC bullying.
Context. Most often the context of the sentence/subject is the first thing to be lost. Too often that has to be done before the easily offended can be properly offended. The argument then becomes over the word itself, just because it is on somebodies list, regardless of the original context, or general use, or even dictionary definition(s).
Just because some words, that someone, in some Safe Haven, decides are suppose to be offensive to some, somewhere and are used in a sentence elsewhere on DU, does not necessarily mean it is actually an insult, put down, slight, bigotry, discrimination, or less than glowing admiration for, or even meant as a reference the GLBT in any way, shape or form. Stop acting like it is.
That is why DU has Safe Havens, where the members can make their own rules and ban words used there.
The people trying to purify the English language for general usage around here are not making any friends by their bullying. That shuts people down and you lose supporters by doing so.
Profile Information
Gender: MaleHometown: North Dakota
Home country: US of A
Current location: Kansas City MO
Member since: 2001
Number of posts: 25,592
