That's hilarious because a non-racist would assume that all races are equally able to learn, read, and speak a national language. The person claiming a national language is "racist" is implying that some races are less able than others to cope with such a change, which is itself a racist belief. It is amazing to me the way this is so often glossed over and not pointed out.

I don't know about all of that, but being able to understand one another because there is a standard is how you maintain a nation long-term, without having it spilt into factions of people who see each other as different from the rest, only to become Balkanized over time.

Another sad truth: political power is gained and expanded by dividing people, not by uniting them. The extreme hypersensitivity encouraged by identity politics and the obsession with group identity has two major effects. One, it encourages emotional, irrational thinking which helps prevent the sort of attention and scrutiny those in power don't want. Two, it produces division and squabbling over matters that by design cannot be resolved, creating much distraction, wasting much energy, and most of all allowing politicians to keep (and expand) power by promising to protect each group from all of the others. It's classic divide-and-conquer.

Inventing "racists" where they do not actually exist is never going to lead to the sort of color-blind society that judges people by the content of their character. "I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law", Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Really? Because I make these decisions based on the facts of the matter, not the popularity of those involved. I suppose during the early 1500s you'd have sided with Tolosani against Copernicus because the latter was not considered credible (and by some, heretical - our version of a "crackpot") during his time.

I scrutinize the message, not the messenger. I doubt you appreciate just how easy it is to demagogue and character-assassinate, not to mention that both of those are carried out with emotional arguments/manipulation and other propaganda techniques. Reason is much more difficult to twist; facts are even more difficult still.

I'm not trying to be rude, but the mentality you demonstrate (which was instilled in you) is the major reason why society has as many faults as it does today.

I appreciate and admire your intentions here, but the sad fact is: you cannot reason with this kind of narrow-mindedness.

Although, I would be glad to be proven wrong on this one.

Is that how you describe the spying, manipulation, and dehumanization in which they engage? You rate them on how effectively they do so and express your disappointment that their art has not yet been perfected as a science?

Sometimes I suspect that this civilization is lost.

You never read 1984 or you didn't fully comprehend it.

The message is, "you will fall in line, or we WILL find you". The patient and therefore smart move is to set up the surveillence infrastructure first, get people used to the idea, and then become a more oppressive government. The only power governments have over their own citizens is against people who break the law.

If you do that then the marketing won't work! Why, they might even start evaluating their needs rationally...

When you have a culture in which average people believe thinking and reasoning is a terrible burden to be avoided or offloaded at every opportunity, you naturally will observe the kind of dependency and vulnerability you point out here. It leads to people who don't want to be involved in decisions that drastically affect their own lives.

Somehow there arose this myth that you either know nothing at all, or must be a fully trained expert, that no intermediate level of knowledge, no amount of reference could ever be useful.

It amazes me how you or anyone else can see this happen time and time again and still believe that we have two distinct parties.

Jefferson knew what a two-party system would become and specifically warned against it. At some point they both realize they can play the voters in the middle, sort of like "good cop, bad cop". For maximum effect, switch roles once in a while. Then people support a given one for irrational, emotional, tribal, "my team" reasons and stop thinking critically. Take a hard look at the world of US politics and tell me this isn't exactly what's happening. Then make the next tiny leap and understand that someone definitely benefits from this, and it is not accidental.

Heh I actually did this once. The credit card was only a form of payment - I had the money in the bank (otherwise, this would be immensely stupid).

The sales guy was noticably pissed off but he went through with it. He even acted professional and everything. Oh and this was after extensive haggling and (through willingness to go elsewhere) talking him down to some thin margins.

He was a likable guy and I have nothing against him. It was satisfying to see him sweat, all the same.

The major criticism is that creating a corporation is a way to gain personal enrichment without personal liability.

I'll not claim he made good posts, for I think that's a judgment for each reader to make and not for me to pontificate, but I will say you gave him lots of room to make the replies that he made. That's as fairly as I know how to describe what happened there.

If you think that's cheating, how about this nice fact: for at least the last 50 years, worker productivity has steadily increased and continues to do so. Meanwhile, wages (when accounting for inflation etc) have remained stagnant.

That's a masterwork of negotiation and shrewdness on the part of corporations, to be sure. Yet if by "cheating" you mean "doing something unfair/inequitable/unethical" then you must admit this fits the description. Unless, of course, you wish to argue that someone who produces more should not also be compensated more, in which case I'd be interested to hear your reasoning. I suppose while you're at it you could explain why a luxury sports car should cost the same as a rusty jalopy.

The D's tend to attract immature people who use emotion (which is easily manipulated) when they should use reason, and believe that the intensity of the emotion makes this okay. The R's tend to attract materialist business interests (which are easily manipulated) and old people who think that leaving their children and grandchildren with more debt than they could ever hope to repay is excellent parenting.

Neither represents me and I would be shocked if either represented you.

I really can't fathom how so many people don't understand what's going on. Thomas Jefferson explicitly warned against a two-party system because he knew what it would turn into. The idea is, you play "good cop, bad cop" and for maximum effectiveness, you swap roles every now and then. The result is that you play the voters in the middle. If you think that couldn't possibly be going on, it's because the parties understand strategy and you don't. Both parties benefit by doing this, just as all cell phone companies (competitors now) benefitted by overcharging for texting. It's an informal collusion that doesn't require a written arrangement. All it requires is that each entity promote their own self-interests.

It gives the illusion of choice because it de-emphasizes one critical fact of American politics: it is not a competition for the best ideas that puts a candidate into office. It is the campaign donors who do that. Now then, isn't it odd the way so many corporations donate to BOTH parties? It's as though they get their influence no matter who wins. Hmm.

Meanwhile the only differences between the parties are about useless (from the standpoint of sustaining a collapsing nation) issues like abortion and gay marriage. Both parties intend to grow the size and power and pervasiveness of the federal government. Both parties view the Bill of Rights as something to find clever ways around, usually in the name of safety or fighting terrorism. Both parties fight pointless overseas wars against foreign nations that are not a threat to the USA because the military-industrial interests demand it and because the economy would have collapsed long ago without it.

For your own sake, take a hard look at what's going on.

What you describe is true in an ideal employment environment.

The problem is, when criminal bankers knowingly make unsound loans and employ bad financial instruments like credit default swaps, and do it on a scale that it grossly harms the global economy, then jobs become more scarce and workers become more desperate. In this kind of scenario, the employer is at a clear advantage and the worker is at a clear disadvantage. This is especially true with a (multiple) state-sponsored organization that does not even have to make a profit such as this one. The usual market forces apply less and maybe don't apply at all.

This will cause people to take jobs they don't want and otherwise wouldn't take because they have families to feed and mortgages to pay and consider themselves fortunate to have work at all. The workers aren't bad negotiators or incompetent or doing a disservice to other candidate workers like you suggest. They're doing what they have to do to survive, not what they want to do in an ideal scenario.