The people in charge don't give a shit. They buy votes with debt that's backed, essentially, by the military they bought with the debt, and share some of the credit with the Saudis. It's a bank and defense contractor free-for-all paid for by pretty much everyone who's screwed by the petrodollar.

That's because there's a stronger monoculture in Japan, and you can actually blame individuals for making bad choices since they're part of the same monoculture. In the USA and UK, there is not a monoculture, and it's not permissible if you're in the majority to blame someone from a minority when they commit a crime. Or something like that, I feel...

That's an interesting point. I was thinking that the internet, especially when anonymous, has the effect of multiplying the perceived/apparent impact of a small number of actors. It's kind of like terrorism, in that it's asymmetric. For this reason, I can kind of understand the concerns over the apparent threat, but I find the people claiming it's a "cultural problem" aren't understanding that a big part of the reason the crowd isn't reacting the way the critics want is because the crowd intuitively knows what a small number of people there are purveying this antisocial behavior, and thus feel the claim of "cultural problem" is at best improper, and at worst slanderous.

Haven't you already noticed how weak social conservatism is getting in the GOP? Many, many people have abandoned that mode of thinking. It's one of the reasons the GOP continues to lose even in the face of the pro-war, pro-bank Democrats: The fiscal conservatives and genuinely small government (even out-of-the-bedroom, anti-war small government) are splintering off from the necons and religious right, and choosing to lose to Democrats instead. Lots of people under 40 who are fiscal conservatives, anti-police state, anti-war, and have no issues at all with social liberalism are continuing not to vote for the extreme right wing.

There are plenty of pro-life people who aren't anti-contraception. It is in no way shape or form a solid, unified group who all hold the same opinions.

Except that if I set myself a wage floor of $200/hour, I'd be out of work, because it's not worth it for anyone to pay me that much. Wage floors, whether people can measure it accurately or not, are believed by me (as a person) to create unemployment. And I think that's worse than minimum wage.

Thank you for a civil and issue-based response, by the way. I do appreciate it. I just happen to disagree that it's in the best interest of people who are marginally employable to set wage floors.

I don't have one. What are you trying to imply? That artificial wage floors don't cause unemployment, and that people who are opposed to wage floors are evil? Or, would you rather discuss the issue civilly?

The right to work for less may be better than not working at all.

That's a wonderful point. How many people who study the humanities only get exposure to the [Platonic] "good" through a mediocre survey of philosophy class and Cliff's Notes on "The Republic"? How many welders/carpenters/chefs get to experience this first hand? I'd bet the latter group have a much better understanding of the universe, on average, than those without experience doing anything of value.

Have you ever read John Taylor Gatto? I think you'd really enjoy him.

You joke, but one of the effects of increasing income inequality can be that the high income group starts to rely on the low income group more and more for these kinds of services.

So I can tell the time, which I currently use my phone for. Oh, I still need a phone?

All of this is vanity. We see more and more attempts to "scientifically" control human behavior, instead of setting humans up to succeed in the first place, by having simple, sane laws and what not. End the war on drugs, and you will radically improve relations between the police and the policed in a generation.

And since then they corrected to the wrong side. Why?

And I just spent mod points on roman_mir.