I was squeaking by in undergrad, working various part time jobs to pay the bills. I took longer than most to finish my BS but made it through without having to take out any student loans.

For grad school I was a married man, which helped. I was also given a tuition waiver and a $20k stipend which also helped. I knew plenty of people who did OK on the stipend living alone as well; not great but a tolerable existence. After all, the stipend is intentionally kept on the meager side to encourage you to get out of grad school.

It was founded by Kim Il-Sung, who had communist ideals, yes. However it has ventured far, far, away from those ideals. Indeed the present day US is vastly closer to being an ideal free-market state than North Korea is to being anything that can be approximated as being close to actual communism.

I don't know many people who laugh at falling on their own face, but if that is what keeps you going...

Smitty, that tactic may be cute when grade school kids use it on each other, but it smacks of desperation (at the very least) when adults play that card. You need a new strategy here; I suggest you try going back to discussing topics that you are knowledgeable - or at least interested in becoming knowledgeable - on.

I don't know if you are smitty, writing as an AC, or just some AC copying smitty (and his silly twitter tag that nobody else finds to be the least bit connected to reality).

That said:

There you go, making assumptions based on your own assumptions about me. Gun control means a lot of different things, and it does not mean they all have to happen simultaneously (or ever).

The fact of the matter is though, we have a lot of guns in this country. And they most certainly don't help to reduce our per capita crime rates.

Ahh, yes. WWJC - What Would Jesus Carry? I remember the New Testament book of Uzi where he mowed down those sinners, that was a personal favorite of mine. Let no righteous man go unarmed to the mall, and all that, right?

You made more sense when you went for the one-word replies. I just directly pointed out how desperately you perpetuate a long list of conspiracy theories without concern for the confines of the legal requirements for removal of the POTUS or even the calling of a grand jury. This has been the most glaring weakness of essentially all of your arguments for the past 6 years - it is utterly transparent that you will stop at nothing to throw out any politician whose name is followed by a (D), regardless of whether or not there is a moonshot chance at getting enough evidence for a grand jury hearing on such a matter. You also have shown that you don't see constitutional protections as being relevant to anyone with that cursed fourth letter, and are willing to keep calling new investigations and new trials until well past the end of time.

Your bit about tap dancing is a far better description of you avoiding the failures of your own arguments.

I'm just glad that the criminal justice system in this country doesn't work the way you want it to, or our government would have gone broke on corrections costs many decades ago.

But again, why do you care about those issues when the person on the receiving end is a veteran of your conservative camp, and not at all when they are not? I'm willing to give you enough slack to say that maybe you weren't following the legions of other conservatives who were falsely blowing around bullshit about these being first amendment matters - although if that is the case then the question of why you are replying to this thread at all remains open.

So then why are you replying to this thread? This thread is about freedom of speech as extended by the first amendment.

If we replace "conservatives" with "progressives" that statement would read like a summary of the conspiracy theories that you have been advocating here.

Well that was a textbook example of trolling, there, smitty. Maybe if you go back to school you could teach classes on how to troll people online.

You started by using an actual definition. Then you completely discarded it like yesterday's junk mail and inserted your own beliefs in its place. Pretending that using one fact at the start of a comment gives you carte blanche to make up facts for the rest of the comment - that's epic. I would give you one hand clapping but you would probably try to insinuate that the other was giving a very special salute to someone in DC.

Do you mean a perfect thought? Regardless there is nothing perfect about the second amendment. Why did they mention the Militia if it was not important? That is the only amendment in the Bill of Rights that is only one sentence; why is that?

I believe you have said that before. You probably don't remember me saying this before - and likely won't believe it when I say it again - but I actually do own guns. I don't believe that gun regulations need to be an all-or-nothing deal. I do believe, however, that we can do a much better job than we currently are. Furthermore I believe that what we are currently doing is not working and we need to try something else. I also believe that guns are a terrible choice for self-defense and we should do something about the mentality that tells so many people otherwise.

Sure, you haven't done that. Excepting the times when you very plainly have, of course.

For example, your top conspiracy theory Benghazi. The government has already ran an investigation into it, and you refuse to actually read the report from that investigation before demanding that another one be done. You demand more time and treasure go in to the investigation of something that has already been investigated, and your only justification for that is "because". You have no facts on it that were not investigated, you have only your feelings on it that you want to see fleshed out into an unending series of efforts to overthrow the POTUS. Being as you weren't willing to even read the results of the first investigation, you give no reason to believe that you would ever be happy with a second one unless it advocated for the immediate extralegal removal of Obama.

Then on to the IRS non-troversy. In case you forgot, they are tasked with the collection of taxes. They were investigating groups that were openly advocating cheating on - and straight out not paying - taxes.

And that doesn't even scratch the surface of your never ending collection of conspiracy theories, those are just the two that you yell the loudest about.

The key fact here though is that you have already shown an open acceptance of discarding legal procedures to further your goal of throwing Obama out at any cost.

So then what was your point in your JE about the guy from Mozilla?. The quote you used even explicitly mentioned

But nonetheless, I will extend you the possibility that perhaps you did not feel that he, or duck man, or hobby lobby, had their freedom of speech impaired and you just were lazy with your quotes and sources.

However, if that is the case, then what is the argument you are trying to make here? The cartoon I linked to here is very plain in it's point, and is plainly showing the rank hypocrisy of the right . Earlier you pretty much showed that the right sees the constitution as no more than a mere inconvenience, what is your argument now?

Someone just sent troops into Poland, after all.

Go ahead. Make your argument for how any of those people had their freedom of speech impeded. You have plenty of conservative talking points to support you on it, go ahead and bring them.

Show us your superior understanding of all things constitutional. Tell us how when a conservative loses his job for being a loudmouthed idiot it is an infringement of his freedom of speech, but when it happens to a liberal it's just market forces at work.

I did not say you said that. Rather I said that you are again simultaneously claiming President Lawnchair to be powerless ("rodeo clown") and wielding power. Those are mutually exclusive traits.

I was calling the politicians cowardly. I have no idea how your response is supposed to be a reply to that.

You really should stick to terms that you are familiar with the meaning of. There is no socialism at play here.

I do not recall you having done such a thing, ever. I know I have asked you more than once for your suggestion and every time I can recall, you have dodged the question.

You seem so certain in your belief that you know better than anyone else who everyone should vote for, yet you have never said who that is.

There was nothing to dismiss, as you did not offer anything. I have asked you repeatedly and have never seen you to actually offer a candidate.

If you are half as smart as you portray yourself to believe yourself to be, it should be trivially easy for you to suggest who you believe would be a better choice for me.

So go on, do it. Tell me who you think I should be voting for.

Tell me then, who would have been a better choice? You believe yourself to be so highly knowledgeable; who would have better represented me?