No such thing as a free lunch...

[HoffmanMyster]

Oh god, I go to watch one simple movie and I miss all this fun.

First, I want to thank you, Pacifist.  I have never had a signature before this, but I think this might just make the cut.  It's still under review, but damnit it's just so good.

Food doesn't grow on trees

Second, stop being an entitled prick.

Third, listen to eth0s, he is a smart man.

Fourth, please learn about things before you talk about them.  You don't have to be right or be super smart, but at least be able to talk competently.  Please.

[tjcaustin]

and thus i guess capitolism sucks and is the root cause of all of our suffereing

Show Image

hmm, wow, where do i begin? 

"Capitolism" is a word to describe partisan grid-lock, and the fact that market forces are subsumed to the will of politicians in Wash, D.C.

"Capitalism" is an economic system whereby private individuals are allowed to own the means of production in order to extract profits at the expense of workers.  Each worker is individually exploited as he is never paid the full value of his labor, with the difference being siphoned off as "profits" by the owners of the firm.

First:  Your block quote is ridiculously inaccurate and racist.  Please don't cite phony "articles" containing fictitious figures, it undermines your argument.  And it makes you look like a fool for believing it to be true.

Second:  The argument contained within the phony article is fallacious.  More specifically it employs the "throw the baby out with the bathwater" fallacy.  Originally the name of this fallacy came from German:  das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten.  Also known as the False Dilemma Fallacy.  This fallacy represents the argument that if something is imperfect, then there is no way to improve it, and the whole thing must be scrapped.  Which is of course, not true.  Fallacious reasoning will earn you an F in your debate class.  Please do not try it. 

Third:  Adam Smith, the intellectual and spiritual father of American free market capitalism in his seminal work, his magnus opus, The Wealth of Nations, warned us all that while free market capitalism is the most efficient means of organizing capital and labor, it must nevertheless be rigorously and vigilantly regulated either by a very strong government or by a very active tort bar, or both.  Smith cautioned that free market capitalism will be forever in jeopardy of being ruined by the stupidity and greed of the capitalists themselves.  Smith warned that the goal of every businessman was to control the market and fix prices, through monopoly, oligopoly, collusion and criminal enterprise.  Smith further warned that a business-dominated political system would allow a conspiracy of businesses and the government against consumers, with the former scheming to influence the politics and legislation of the latter.  Which is exactly what is happening right now.

Fourth:  Plato the Greek philosopher, foretold in his book The Republic, written in 380 B.C., that democracy, as a form of government, is vulnerable to being superseded.  The enemy of democracy is not fascism (as most conservatives try to tell you), instead the enemy of democracy is plutocracy:  rule by a class of elites.  Plato warned that the natural trend in every democracy is for wealth to be concentrated in the hands of a few, which leads to an entrenched class of rich people, who then take control of the government, and who will eventually eliminate democratic rule, since they fear that the will of the people is contrary to their sustained wealth and power.  Again, this is happening right now.

i can get way more evidence for free trade bad and cap bad

http://openev.debatecoaches.org/bin/download/2013/Gonzaga/Capitalism%20Kritik%20-%20Gonzaga%202013.docx

this file is full of evidence saying cap is bad

"Hey guize, someone else did a bunch of research for a debate competition where they had to be the negative opinion, I'm just going to parrot it as irrevocable fact now.  Like everything else I say ever."

Do you actually learn independent thought and fact processing in your debate class, cause it doesn't feel like it.

[berserkfan]

making the kids work for their food is a good idea. Instill values of hard work, but don't humiliate them. Problem is, it's hard to achieve in practice. And I can imagine the rich kids sneering at the poor kids doing the cleaning up. That doesn't make for a friendly, healthy, balanced school environment.

One way to do this could be to have a school duty roster where everyone pitches in to help clean the school. INCLUDING THE RICH KIDS. The difference is that if you're on free lunches, you have many more spots on the roster. If you have a disciplinary problem, you also have more spots. But everyone gets his hands dirty at least once a month.

In any case in many Asian schools it's normal for schoolkids to clean the classroom as part of their routines. It's Americans who are not used to having such basic civic things like responsibility for one's environment drilled into them. I remember my first year in an American college, and I was really shocked at how filthy and disgusting Americans were in private life. Some did not throw out the trash ALL SEMESTER, accumulating literally an entire closet filled with pizza crusts and food boxes. Others did not do laundry a single time, and got their mom's station wagon to take back 4 freaking months of dirty laundry in one shot. One guy bought a huge box of utensils from costco or sam's place, can't remember which one. He never did any washing, and threw away METAL FORKS AND KNIVES after every meal.

My second year in college, I was praying for thanksgiving. You know why? Because at thanksgiving, my fat American roommate would take home his unwashed laundry! After thanksgiving things get better because it's cold enough for the laundry to not stink, until spring came by again and the usual stench filled the air.

[iri]

I lost both my legs fighting for you in Afghanistan.  I came back and my VA disability claim was delayed for five years.  Which isn't bad, I've heard of seven and eight year claims.  Anywho, I finally got some prosthetic legs, but they don't fit, and cause me major blisters and sores on my stumps.

no problem. according to pacifist, you can easily grow yourself a pair of new legs.

[rowdy]

TANSTAAFL!

[iri]

It's Americans who are not used to having such basic civic things like responsibility for one's environment drilled into them. I remember my first year in an American college, and I was really shocked at how filthy and disgusting Americans were in private life. Some did not throw out the trash ALL SEMESTER, accumulating literally an entire closet filled with pizza crusts and food boxes. Others did not do laundry a single time, and got their mom's station wagon to take back 4 freaking months of dirty laundry in one shot. One guy bought a huge box of utensils from costco or sam's place, can't remember which one. He never did any washing, and threw away METAL FORKS AND KNIVES after every meal.

My second year in college, I was praying for thanksgiving. You know why? Because at thanksgiving, my fat American roommate would take home his unwashed laundry! After thanksgiving things get better because it's cold enough for the laundry to not stink, until spring came by again and the usual stench filled the air.

it seems i'd rather pursue my master degree in a european university.

[SpAmRaY]

I lost both my legs fighting for you in Afghanistan.  I came back and my VA disability claim was delayed for five years.  Which isn't bad, I've heard of seven and eight year claims.  Anywho, I finally got some prosthetic legs, but they don't fit, and cause me major blisters and sores on my stumps.

no problem. according to pacifist, you can easily grow yourself a pair of new legs.

That puts a whole new perspective on the phrase 'grow a pair'

This thread is ridiculously depressing.

I feel we should get back on topic and stop harassing Pacifist for being so short-sighted.

I believe that if the lesser-endowed kids have to work for free lunch, the school system should say "**** it" and have everybody get free lunch and work for it.

Or, they could find another way to give them work ethic without bringing up mandatory community service, though that may have to be implemented as much as I hate the idea.

You mean like through classes that teach important skills such as shop, home ec, ag co-op, auto shop?  All kids "work" for their meals.  Their job is to learn how to be a productive grown up as best they can when they're, you know, grown.

Sadly many schools I'm familiar with no longer have shop class, home economics, agriculture, auto shop etc.....mostly because those classes were considered too dangerous AND get this...they didn't help kids get into college.....

[Linkbane]

Are you ****ing kidding me? We're going to humiliate these kids because through no fault of their own they can't afford the normal price for a school lunch? And what in the hell does cutting in line have to do with anything? I can't believe anyone thinks this is a good idea. This is surely going to create a massive class division in the school. As it is, it's a fairly subtle thing for a student to get a free or reduced price lunch and it need not be a prominent indicator of status. But if we have a certain group of kids being made to perform labor at the school for their meals, this will create a clear and simple way for the others to set them apart, no doubt as some kind of subordinate class.

What makes this genius think there's some kind of myth of a free lunch? Does he think these kids don't go home and know about what difficulty there is in keeping the family fed, if they're at the poverty line? Does he think they don't know they're getting a free lunch precisely because it's sometimes difficult to be able to afford one and they're on the wrong side of that line? I got free lunches in school for a time, and I didn't go around thinking **** was going to fall into my lap all my life. I don't know what got into this guy's head that makes him think he needs to teach anyone a lesson, but he needs to put the god damn Heinlein down and go do something useful.

It's been thousands of years since humans have created societies on this planet. It's far, far too late for people to not be able to get food for themselves if they are weak, poor, unable to work. There's nobody more disgusting than someone rich without sympathy to those less fortunate than themselves.

This policy disgusts me. Someone has to live in crap conditions and work everyday for things that other people have easily, so you should make them work so they can eat? Unreal.

its going to get backlash cuz for the most part the people who get free lunches are lazy and don't work for their food.

I'm assuming you would know, you pathetic little wanker. Paying $5 of your parents' hard earned money must be really difficult for you, good thing that we can be nice to people far less fortunate and hoping to afford a $10 keyboard rather than $250 by making them work at a school instead of learning.

*Mod Edit: User was warned for this post.

+1 on this. People always cut in line and get free food. They all where $400 shoes and $100 hats. And forgot about g-shock for 'swag' I use my watch for keeping time lol. All those watches are not synced with the time and are 4 hours off average. I pay for my lunch, $20 a week. Get cookies and whatever they serve. MAKE EM WORK FOR FOOD!

Or what, make their parents pay for their food so they don't have to work? Let's just increase the humiliation of the poor we ascribe to in the US by making schoolchildren work for food!

[kmiller8]

ahhh... I miss the days of being 16 and knowing everything, thank god I wasn't on the internet.

Seriously though Pacifist, I tried telling you a few days ago to just shut up sometimes. I didn't say that out of hatred or because you're annoying as ****. I did that as a warning for you, to prevent something like this from happening. Oh well...

I'd like to say "I hope you learned your lesson" but as is PAINFULLY obvious, you just can't learn or take any sort of advice from anyone actually trying to help you. Unless it's some random article you've googled.

[hoggy]

Is it just me that thinks this is a cost cutting exercise?

[paicrai]

and thus i guess capitolism sucks and is the root cause of all of our suffereing

Show Image

How the **** did you manage to miss-spell capitalism when it's right on the picture you uploaded?

[inteli722]

I lost both my legs fighting for you in Afghanistan.  I came back and my VA disability claim was delayed for five years.  Which isn't bad, I've heard of seven and eight year claims.  Anywho, I finally got some prosthetic legs, but they don't fit, and cause me major blisters and sores on my stumps.

no problem. according to pacifist, you can easily grow yourself a pair of new legs.

That puts a whole new perspective on the phrase 'grow a pair'

This thread is ridiculously depressing.

I feel we should get back on topic and stop harassing Pacifist for being so short-sighted.

I believe that if the lesser-endowed kids have to work for free lunch, the school system should say "**** it" and have everybody get free lunch and work for it.

Or, they could find another way to give them work ethic without bringing up mandatory community service, though that may have to be implemented as much as I hate the idea.

You mean like through classes that teach important skills such as shop, home ec, ag co-op, auto shop?  All kids "work" for their meals.  Their job is to learn how to be a productive grown up as best they can when they're, you know, grown.

Sadly many schools I'm familiar with no longer have shop class, home economics, agriculture, auto shop etc.....mostly because those classes were considered too dangerous AND get this...they didn't help kids get into college.....

See, My school only has Home Ec and FFA (Agriculture) from what I know of. Surprisingly, FFA is rather popular.

As for the college thing: I hate how schools are pushing college admission. Not everyone is cut out for college, and not everyone will make it. The schools need to man up and keep kids realistic.

[Linkbane]

ahhh... I miss the days of being 16 and knowing everything, thank god I wasn't on the internet.

Seriously though Pacifist, I tried telling you a few days ago to just shut up sometimes. I didn't say that out of hatred or because you're annoying as ****. I did that as a warning for you, to prevent something like this from happening. Oh well...

I'd like to say "I hope you learned your lesson" but as is PAINFULLY obvious, you just can't learn or take any sort of advice from anyone actually trying to help you. Unless it's some random article you've googled.

As another sixteen-year-old, I regret that Pacifist cannot help but degrade our image further.

[paicrai]

ahhh... I miss the days of being 16 and knowing everything, thank god I wasn't on the internet.

Seriously though Pacifist, I tried telling you a few days ago to just shut up sometimes. I didn't say that out of hatred or because you're annoying as ****. I did that as a warning for you, to prevent something like this from happening. Oh well...

I'd like to say "I hope you learned your lesson" but as is PAINFULLY obvious, you just can't learn or take any sort of advice from anyone actually trying to help you. Unless it's some random article you've googled.

As another sixteen-year-old, I regret that Pacifist cannot help but degrade our image further.

He should change his name. Pacifist doesn't quite fit.

[Malphas]

the good thing is all the rich people don't care about going against this because it doesn't affect their kids

while the poor people without much pushing power have to work for their food which is just

You are a douche.

[Pacifist]

then wake up a half hour earlier and bring your own lunch. No more lines. If you can't wake up earlier, then you should probably examine your schedule.

it doesn't work like that. Everybody is released for lunch at the same time. So those who are lazy just cut in the line that just grew because they were too lazy to walk faster

[Photoelectric]

Locked for now, as this discussion has basically turned into a personal insult contest.