1. Feel no guilt for your success.
2. Succeed and insist that you did it by hard work and failed many times before you succeeded and that the reason most people fail is because they never try.
3. Work in the private sector
4. Compete
5. Insist you keep score
6. have a box of Kleenex handy so when they open their mouth and complain, you can give them a tissue to cry in.
7. Point out America is successful because of a combination of capitalism, British culture, hard work, military strength and aggression, as well as engineering and science (not art and philosophy or "Insertethnicgrouphere"Studies).
8. Point out that people like you don't need people like them to survive as you support yourself. Yet people like them need people like you to survive because they are not self-reliant and need income transfers and therefore should be grateful...or just call them an ungrateful parasite, it's just quicker.
But if you really want to give them a heart attack just show them this chart of executive compensation as a multiple of the average worker's earnings;
And then, like The Economist did in the article, defend it.
15 comments:
Do you mean piss off a liberal?
Frankly, I'd rather piss ON a liberal
And often do
I'd change "British" to "Western", but other than that, yeah, pretty much.
Now, if only someone who sits around playing video games would have read that book on the history of American economic power I loaned him. It's all about the unfettered nature of capitalism, after all. Too bad he sat on his butt instead.
I've been knocking out 90 hour work weeks contributing to GDP and powering what few remaining pistons this capitalist economy has left in it.
And yet you managed to read books I loaned you on the Roman army? Not very far, I grant you, but cripes, you could have asked me about the ROman army; I could have given you your precious websites about the Roman army, but noooo, you had to borrow my books about the Roman army when you COULD have been reading about the most vibrant and important capitalist economy in the planet's history.
No, not China's. This country's. Jeez.
China. It makes me despair.
The left will usually retort with their commitment to "Social Justice" That is big one for them.
Here is the short definition of Social Justice.
"People who work cutting checks to people who don't"
Perhaps I read that here previously.
I would insist Anglo or English culture which breed the capitalism. Capitlism was originated in England. English culture is culture of commerce which believe open border free trade.
Continental Europe, especially France, have more nationalism to protect their own losers instead of free open border trade. Nationalism=tribalism=barbarism.
However, French made fun of Englans as `nation of shop keepers'
Exactly `nation of shop keepers' breed for open capitalism.
Bill Gate is symbol of Anglo-capitalism. Lou Dobb is symbol of French-tribalism.
How to piss off a Conservative:
"A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE REPUBLICAN"
Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.
All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too.
He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.
Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air.
He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.
If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.
It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.
Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that his in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university.
Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the tax-payer funded roads.
He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans.
The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.
He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.
Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."
I'm all for everything but that last one. I just can't fathom what justified a number of top Nortel execs earning close to 100 million a year while they tanked the company and lost thousands of people their jobs and thousands more many many millions in investments. And I do believe it is Nortel type execs that are causing this bigger and bigger gap.
A company owner who took the risk to get things going deserves to make a damn good living. But he also has to accept that he is now also responsible for maintaining the lifely hoods of the people who helped him make that happen. And making sure those who helped him have that damn good living have at least a good living to.
Yeah, those unions, boy they do great things for this economy. Especially our auto-industry;
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070125/BUSINESS01/70125006/0/BUSINESS
Only a $12.7 billion loss?
Actually, if we want to delve into the history of culture and capitalism *cracking knuckles and chuckling wickedly*, the big proponents of free-trad capitalism (and, I would argue, the great influence on American capitalism in many, many ways) were the Dutch, from whom the British stole a lot of their best ideas when it came to trade. The trouble the Dutch had from a geographic standpoint was that, while they could get filthy rich (and did) they were also involved in Continental geopolitics and were located next to France, as well as having their major maritime trade routes going right past Britian; always a major bummer when it comes to attempting to keep your sea lanes of communication open.
Nevertheless, the economic ideas of the Dutch probably had the most to do with influencing the British colonists and thus the early American way of economic thought, and the Dutch economic empire was certainly nothing to sneeze at (no pun intended for including the Spice Islands).
"Western" culture, in this context, means the culture descended from the classical traditions of Greece and Rome, rather than the traditions of the Orient; all European nations are influenced to one degree or another by these traditions, for good or ill (from the heavy hand of authoritarianism currently in vogue in Russia to shrill screaming mob rule so in evidence in the EU).
Considering that Britain was the nation that Brother Jonathan probably would have voted "Most Likely To Go To War With", even after 1815, until, say, the 1930's (unless you were a New England fussbudget), I stand by my assertion of Western, rather than British, culture as the shaping force. Must be all the Paddies and Germans coming in *snickers*.
Chicago Blue,
All the things that the commie Liberals got with their whining about EVERYTHING, was created and paid for by Joe Republican.
We do the heavy lifting then the cattle take up the slack whilst we go onto the next creative method of feeding you liberal wastoids.
If you have manged to squeeze more funding, security, and high wages etc. then that is what you contributed to well-being of society and it's eventual bankruptcy. Whining works for awhile.
We create the goals and achieve them, then you people jump on the train and suck them dry.
Got that?
We construct .. you destruct.
We wouldn't need all the nanny state TLC if you hadn't bred and taught the last couple of generation to be weak, reliant and operate only as a glacially slow collective.
It is in the interest of the right winger capitalist freedom lovers to have clean air, water and food etc. After all it's not in their interest to kill their customers.
We will be the ones to fix it all since you main part in this is the whining.
Hey chicagoblue;
you have drunk the collectivist kool aid. you have read "the jungle" and believed it. you are anti freedom. freedom means free markets, and freedom to fail. "joe republican" would have his own well to drink from, would choose his owm shampoo based on what he liked, would buy his eggs from a market he picked out himself, would figure out a way to get to his own job himself, and pay your lazy butt to rule it over him.read history FDR caused more trouble than he solved. unions are antifreedom.
Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean because the free market has provided Joe with an efficient water filter that purifies his water to a higher standard than government regulations, and costs less. With his first swallow of water, Joe takes his medications which are safe because companies that sell unsafe products quickly go out of business and may be liable for damages.
Joe's medications are cheap because he bought them at Wal-Mart for $3, despite all the costs of government regulations that push prices higher all over.
He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because people don't buy food that makes them sick, and it is in the best interests of the meat packing industry to have internal quality controls because of this. While he's eating his breakfast, he reads Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which he bought in the Fiction section of his local bookstore. Joe loves Fantasy books.
In the morning shower, Joe uses his shampoo which he knows is safe because it was tested on animals, despite the whining of animal rights whackos.
Joe dresses, walks outside, and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because firms that pollute his property are liable for damages. Or maybe it's dirty today because the government sold a local manufacturer some pollution credits. Joe feels just great about this because the government's pork fund grew just that much bigger. Or maybe Joe rightfully feels resentment at this shameless abuse of government power.
Joe walks on the sidewalk that could easily have been provided by a homeowner's association, almost breaking his neck because the city does a horrible job of maintaining infrastructure.
Joe drives to work on a toll road and gets there with time to spare because people are car-pooling to reduce the amount they pay in tolls. Because the costs are paid by the individuals using the road, traffic stays within acceptable levels instead of encouraging overconsumption like some subsidized centrally planned scheme. The road turns a profit while the subway requires constant taxation to stay operational.
Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, and vacations because his productivity as a worker justifies this. If the left weren't constantly trying to punish success to finance their socialist schemes, capital accumulation by his employer would allow Joe to be even more productive and have even better pay.
If Joe is hurt, he will have the money to cover his expenses because Joe bought his own insurance like a responsible adult, and because more dangerous jobs need to offer better pay; that is, they do when the government isn't already offering to cover the risks. (inefficiently, of course) If Joe becomes unemployed, that's his responsibility. He'll have a much easier time finding a new job because the committment of any company that hires him doesn't have to take into account the possibility that they might be starting a perpetual charity for the lazy.
It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay his bills. Joe's bank continually makes reckless decisions because they know the Feds will bail them out if they get in too much trouble. Joe's deposit will quickly lose its value because the Federal Reserve is constantly expanding the money supply, much the way they did in the lead-up to the Great Depression. Joe doesn't have any alternative to accepting the rapidly depreciating US Dollars, because they are legal tender.
Joe pays for his mortgage and his student loan that he can easily afford, because he's only paying for his own, rather than everyone else's at the same time. The absence of near-free government loans means that only the people who are actually going to do something productive with their degrees go to college.
Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because he cares about that sort of thing, so he bought a Volvo. It is far safer than the government safety standards require. He once again takes a toll road, which is in far better shape than any public alternative.
He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by private loans because the government wasn't crowding out that particular loan market with their inefficient and unprofitable schemes.
For years, the house didn't have electricity because the government granted a monopoly to a single regional company for producing power. It was illegal for anyone else to help produce electricity.
He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on the hard work of others, which Joe ends up paying for through taxes. When Joe retires, there will be nothing left for him. Perhaps Joe's father has a union pension, and Joe's uncle has been unemployed for years because unions either killed his company or just raised the price of labor so much that they priced many other workers out of the market. Joe and his father aren't as close as they would have been if they were more financially interdependant upon one another, a relationship which the government has made unnecessary.
Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and listens to a radio talk show. The host keeps saying that the Democrats are bad and Republicans are good, when in reality they both advocate government intervention in nearly all aspects of Joe's life. Joe gets sick of it, turns the radio off, and decides to become a libertarian.
LOVE THIS!!! Especially number 7 :) haha!
So, is everyone here to just bash people with a different view mindlessly, or is there any kind of civil discourse allowed?
Please note the "civil" in "civil discourse".
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