The president's thesis is that it takes a government for individuals to succeed disqualifies him from consideration for a second term.
Many describe it as the biggest ideology gaffe of this election year. The speaker says, in essence, that it was merely a grammar goof. Either way, it was a gift to Mitt Romney that, at least temporarily, takes the heat off his tax return dust-up. The mistake, because it certainly was that, was President Obama’s announcement to small business owners, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments26 - Arch Conservative
Masterful oratory? hahhah
Not only were his words not taken out of context but anyone who actually listened to him say those words could hear the condescension dripping form them when they came out of his surly pie hole.
I remember in the months leading up to the 2010 midterm how every leftist moonbat and his mother living upstairs were predicting that the GOP would not make significant gains in Congress. How'd that work out for ya? The fact is that if this miserable facsimile of a leader manages to pull it out in November it will only be due to the combination of Mitt Romney's total lack of charisma and the ever increasing stupidity of the American people as they submit to the degenerate leftist ideology of absolute dependency upon the state as the new norm.
27 - Igor
@23-RJ: you overestimate the appeal of irony. It's so much work to be sarcastic for so little reward that I'm surprised that you persist. Oh well.
28 - Dr Dreadful
Not only were his words not taken out of context
Of course they weren't, Archie - if by "context" we mean GOP spinmeisters and right-wing bloggers/op-ed writers presenting a quote so that in isolation it fits the context of the caricature of Obama they've been painting for the last six or so years.
anyone who actually listened to him say those words could hear the condescension dripping form them
No, Archie: anyone who is you, or is predisposed to think badly of the President, could hear it. Things like that are in the ear, or eye, of the beholder. For instance, it's likely that a fair number of people who read your Blogcritics comments think they are the rantings of an opinionated reactionary windbag. It's likely others think you are a man of principle who tells it like it is.
As troll is fond of reminding us: YMMV.
29 - Dr. Joseph S. Maresca
Government's role is essentially at the macro-economic level- not so much at the household level. Management of reciprocal fair trade can facilitate small business growth overseas. Lowering taxes can put more money into the pockets of small business owners to help them grow their business.
Affordable student loans certainly facilitate students getting the requisite training to advance a career in any of a number of noble professions. Infrastructure investments do help the general conduct of commerce because roads are the lifeblood of economic activity. Government can help to remove gangs and organized criminals because without guaranteed safety- no business can grow anywhere.
Consumers need a modicum of consumer protection to protect against exploitation by sellers. Clearly, the government has some role on the macro level. Its role at the micro level should be less pervasive.
30 - Expat Pat
If your country is going down the tubes, it's because of ignorant conservatives like yourself who can't process more than one sentence of information at a time. I remember people used to look up to America, but the internet has revealed we were seeing an illusion because most the yokels were hidden from view
31 - Igor
The internet as we know it is a triumph of collectivist government activity over private commercial activity. Both IBM and DEC tried to build general-purpose networks and both failed because they wanted to restrict hardware connections to THEIR devices and because they wanted to control and charge for every single little connection and every single little scrap of information and every single little block of data. Both were very authoritarian systems designed to create monopoly control over data communications.
Many people are acquainted with the ancient 3270 systems of bulky ugly, monochromatic, slow, high-priced, 24*80, green on black, heavy terminals, usually with the CICS logon prompt burnt into the screen. Horrible. And IBMs plans for the future were basically more-of-the-same. "Why would anyone want color?" an IBM executive asked me. "They don't need it" he said, answering his own question. Eventually there was a color 3270, but it was a fake, built by Hitachi and costing $10,000.
Meanwhile, the ARPA guys, by now called DARPA as the DoD contributed some bucks, had been working with exotic communications protocols using asynchronous ACKs using the famous Red Balls, Blue Balls, etc. (all commercial systems required synchronous ACKs so that they could maintain their beloved control and mastery and monopoly), sliding-window protocols, packetizing, and flexible connectivity. Some of those techniques found use in Timesharing systems and created some millionaires and supported the luxurious retirement benefits of old IBM Selectric salesmen who couldn't even spell computer.
ARPAnet admitted EVERYONE to the network with flexible connection protocols and cheap bulk rates. After all, it was a research system designed to support academics at universities, and businesses with related research interests. So it was text based, i.e., good ol' ASCII characters. But those clever Unix fellows quickly devised Unix-Unix-Encoding (UUE) which mapped binary onto an ASCII network and allowed free-form binary to flow freely through the network with only a slight cost in efficiency, and then successive generations of UUE (like UUX, etc., with map dictionaries and so on improved efficiency to greater than 100%, close to the Shannon-Nyquist theoretical max rates).
IBM tried to respond with a dialup system called PRODIGY which was pretty good, if stiff and slow, and AOL came along as a closed comm system concentrating on apps. Both featured downstream cacheing at local multiplexors, a decent enough idea, but inferior to ARPAnet which cached at the endpoints thus saving costs and maintenance.
We early users had access to good internet apps like FTP, IRC, email, usenet, etc., just like now, but small home users did everything thru an intermediary BBS, like "SpaceBBS" ($20per month) that a local retired army guy setup in town with a couple relay racks full of ganged PCs and modems and some kind of crossbar. What you did at home was to dialup his modem array and then you could poke around in his file system for good PC programs (like PKzip, Phil Katz's excellent file compression program, still in use), or you could inject a 'quikmail' file into BARRnet which was a concentrator that bundled quikmail packets together and sent them to an SMTP mail initiator, and then collected your email from POPs, made a quickmail packet for you and sent it back thru BARRnet. It was a half-duplex system, not interactive, but the interactive capability was there for larger users that didn't have to share a T1 line.
And then CERN created Mosaic (the first fullscale 'browser'), which we now know as Netscape (when it became a commercial product) which used the highly developed academic publishing language SGML (Structured General Markup Language) in a subset dubbed "HTML", which we all know and love.
The local BBS's like 'SpaceBBS' turned into ISPs, aggregated, and raised their rates!
The whole thrust of the internet was bottom-up design and implementation, and a rather wild-west openness, and it won!
All that with a communications protocol that no right-thinking corporate technical committee would ever approve, connectivity options ditto, billing ditto, and a whole lot of other things ditto. But now they're all doing it.
All of it developed at publicly financed universities and with public research funds.
Your tax dollars at work.
32 - troll
...your tax dollars at work undermining the principles of intellectual property rights and information security
the contradictions - the horror
33 - Clav
@#29:
Quoted for Truth.
34 - Igor
"Intellectual Property Rights" is a recent invention of the giant corporations that seek monopoly over thinkers and consumers. It's a gross exaggeration of traditional copyright and patent law, which was intended to provide some continuing rewards for inventive individuals for a limited time, as specified in the constitution.
Over the last 100 years or so large corporations have sought, and usually received, ever more powerful control over and profit from properties they 'own', that yield the true authors almost nothing. It's basically a high class form of robbery. Robbery of some individuals "intellectual property" in order to obtain a monopoly in the market.
Goliath was beaten by little David, but in the rematch Goliath hired lawyers to harass David with SLAM lawsuits to preoccupy David and demand special conditions and drug tests, etc., that seem to have been tilted against David, especially after some useful judgements from compliant Judges who were happy to accept campaign contributions fom Goliath Inc., and it's generous owners, and then hired the entire audience for the match so that it would appear to onlookers that Goliath was a saint and David the tool of the devil.
In the rematch Goliath crushed the hobbled and harassed David. And everyone cheered in approval.
I think Ken Nordine did a Word Jazz verse about that, perhaps called "Flibberty Jib", which ends "how are things in your town?"
Well?
35 - Les Slater
I wouldn't want to find myself defending Obama so I will not. He doesn't deserve any defense.
I'm a communist so I'm inclined to defend small business in this debate, not all small businesses but those that produce useful products and services.
Sidney and Riley pick on Obama but in a quite superficial way. Obama is a representative of the more general interests of the capitalist class, or more precisely of capital itself.
The capitalist system is in a deep, and deepening crisis. The capitalist class may not be happy with how things are working out on Obama's watch but they do not have much confidence that the likes of Romney would do any better.
Neither business not government create any wealth. Wealth comes from nature and labor. At least some small business owners do labor intensely and that labor does create wealth. To the extent they hire workers the labor of those workers produce more wealth.
The fact of ownership has nothing at all to do with the production of wealth and wealth can be created without any private ownership of the means of production.
36 - roger nowosielski
Tell it how it is, Les.
37 - Igor
A sentient capitalist will state that most commercial endeavors begin with a capitalist, who raises money to initiate the endeavor, to buy the machines, the factories, the trucks, etc., the actual capital (means of production) and to initiate the payroll so that workers may be hired. And it's true. Such activities should be rewarded some way, and there should be a premium for doing it because there is so much leverage -- the ROI is high.
There are alternatives, such as Guild systems in which young skilled worker wannabees apprentice themselves to experienced craftsman, and then supply their own tools (capital).
The real problem is with the allocation of rewards, and capitals opinion that ALL revenue and profit is their property to deal with as they please. It's that opinion that is destroying America by grossly distorting power allocation in business. We need a better way to allocate rewards, perhaps thru unions, perhaps thru worker representation on the Board Of Directors.
38 - Les Slater
Igor,
It is only a very few ignorant capitalists that actually believe '... ALL revenue and profit is their property to deal with as they please'. Those views are more the realm of apologetic wannabees.
The reason things go the way they do is inherent in the lawful workings of the capitalist system itself. Those on for the ride have very little control.
Sidney and Riley blather about how much Obama hates business and loves big government. Obama represents business, at least the most powerful. It is the workings of capitalism itself that is so destructive to small business.
Capital needs a very powerful government. The whole system is shaky and the government is its necessary prop.
Les
39 - Cindy
Hiya Les. Nice to see your typing. You have sharpened another idea for me with #28.
40 - Igor
Apparently it takes a government to stage an Olympics in Utah, too. In 2002 when the perennially screwed up Mormons were busy screwing up the Salt Lake City Olympics, amid much publicity Romney stepped in to save them with a Federal Government bailout of $1.5billion from his fellow Republicans in the US administration. That's more money than the USA spent on all USA Olympics from 1904 onward.
So that Hero of the Radical Right, eager to cut government spending everywhere else, such as old people needing medical care, young children desperately needing food and education, was nevertheless willing and even eager to spend a small fortune to show off to his fellow cultists. And then go about claiming to be a wonderful project manager and advertising his borrowed success as a great personal triumph and a qualification for being president.
He's a bum.
41 - Les Slater
Picking on Romney is a yawn. Is there any evidence that another four years of Obama would be any better?
No matter how smart leaders of finance or government may be, or think they are, they have no solutions.
42 - Igor
Your diffidence has convinced me that you see no differences anywhere between anyone. How boring that must be for you.
43 - Les Slater
Me diffident? I don't express opinions? Bored?
44 - Igor
You may have heard of another bridge around here called the "Golden Gate", so named by Sir Francis Drake when he looked through the opening to the bay, hills covered in the Golden California Poppies that decorated the hills.
The GG was envisioned as a civic project to promote housing in Marin County to support SF business. It was built by union labor for about $35million and came in under budget. And it's still standing. A.P.Giannini (a pretty good judge of good investments, he built the Bank Of America, which you've probably heard of, by pioneering banking to small businesses and shopowners), Giannini bought out the whole issue himself and eventually made a $37million profit on the deal. IIRC the last bond was paid off in 1971. Heck of a good deal, all around.
Thousands of business and personal fortunes were created by that government venture. Including those of a number of my businessman friends.
45 - Igor
George W. Bush's entire personal fortune came through the government. He failed as a wildcatter, "Spectrum Oil", when he tried to start a business in his 30's, losing the entire $500,000 grubstake his family gave him. The Texas Rangers owners approached him with a deal: put in $600k for a 2% holding in a team with a dim future. GWB borrowed the money from "family and friends" (probably his dad). But he was still a lousy businessman (he fired Sammy Sosa), but his partners had a plan:using GWBs influence and his dads political push, they got the county (Arlington County, IIRC) to build a new stadium for the Rangers (using a tax override so that it was paid for by the citizens of Texas, your tax dollars at work!)
Enthusiastic Texas baseball fans went to the new stadium and the rangers started to win and make money.
The management gave GWB an additional 6% of the club, which he eventually reported as Capital Gains (to get the low tax rate) without GWB putting in new money. Most people would regard that 6% ownership bump as pay for services rendered (i.e., influence peddling) and subject to ordinary income taxes.
Thus did the state and county governments of Texas bequeath a fortune on GWB.
46 - Les Slater
Now picking on George W. Bush? Not that I don't agree with what you say. I disagree with why you're saying it.
George was president for eight years. It should be painfully obvious that he couldn't run the government on any serious level. The fact is he didn't.
The various ruling classes have established stable institutions that span several governments of both parties. They are the ones that choose what advisers a president will have and ultimately what policies will be pursued.
Obama disappointing so many is that whatever talents and intentions he may or may not have he has very little wiggle room. His mark is more superficial than not.
47 - Zingzing
Les, If you see no difference between Obama and Romney, you're not paying attention. You may not like the system, but let's not pretend they're all the same. If you want to say they are, go ahead and think about it for a minute rather than sticking up your generic pose.
48 - Arch Windbag
It's very interesting (and more than a little bit sad) to see people like Arch Conservative and RJ talk about things like "spin" and "context" and then ignore the actual message, which can be easily found on the White House website (as El Bicho inferred).
But this is where politics is in the modern United States. People ignore facts because it suits their own ideology. They also make things up and repeat them to give them a cheap form of legitimacy.
In the end, we get the government we deserve. One based on lies and only good enough to build weapons which, contrary to the accepted "wisdom," do nothing more than buy jobs for defense contractors. If you think all of that money "protects our freedoms," then you're whistling past the graveyard of a once great country.
49 - Igor
GWB brags about his accomplishments, and is scornful of those with less wealth, yet everything came from the government. He's an example of the typical self-deluded radical rightist.
50 - troll
Zingzing #47 - the point is more their similarities: both represent the ruling capitalist class and neither has a 'solution' to the present deepening crisis
51 - Les Slater
I suggest people pay a little less attention to any, typical or otherwise, self-deluded radical rightist. They are the flip side of the coin of the self-deluded liberal. The ruling class uses the symbiotic relationship of right and left to their great advantage.
52 - Zingzing
That's a bit hard to respond to, troll. And it's strange that the radical left accuses Obama of being the opposite from what the right accuses Obama of being. I don't trust your statement anymore than I would a rightist's claim that he's a communist. Both statements are simplistic to the point of inanity.
53 - Igor
I mention GWB to point out that we could have known that he would fail in government just as he failed in business. All he ever accomplished was Influence Peddling, not a very distinguished occupation.
Dick Cheney has a similar record: He lied about being CEO of Halliburton, he was NOT. He was actually "Government Relations Officer", i.e., he used his contacts in government to sell Halliburton contracts. He was an Influence Peddler. The truth came out when Halliburtons own officers were sued by their own stockholders for having bought Dresser Industries (said purchase had been pushed by Cheney), which suddenly developed a $20billion liability loss that cost many shareholders lots of money as the stock went thru the floor. Cheney weaseled out by disclaiming his CEOness. Some people claim that the sweetheart KBR Iraq/Afghan contracts were balm for Cheneys screwups. Gee, that suggests that he started those wars to toss lucrative contracts to KBR.
What we could have known from GWBs and Cheneys business screwups was that they would screwup the government, too. Which is what they did, demonstrating unprecedented ignorance and ineptness in everything they touched: economics, war and international relations.
Now we have the next business candidate, Mitt Romney , who claims that his sterling business experience gives him insight into matters, although he never says what that insight reveals. And so far his policy ideas are a joke: witness this weeks stupidity about tax policy that the independent Taxation Policy Center eviscerated.
Romney and Bain are what businessmen call "liquidators": thay are called in to guide a failing business through bankruptcy. The idea is to sift thru the ashes, find any nuggets of gold and set them aside in a separable business that can be isolated and sold for net assets that can throw off commissions and bonuses. The liquidator typically gets 2% of any new capital brought in, and 20% of any profits from asset sales. That's why they're called "2 and 20" outfits.
So, we can expect that Romney will liquidate the USA, Whoops! I don't want that! Why, that even sounds disloyal, or treacherous or treason, or something.
54 - troll
well Zingzing - imo the question of class representation is both significant and empirical
---
left/right conservative/liberal? : why ponder the degree of your amygdala's atrophy...from my pov a more productive exercise for you seekers after self-knowledge is to analyze your 'paycheck' - where does it come from? what is your relationship with surplus value and the the system of class exploitation from which it derives?
55 - roger nowosielski
The seekers after self-knowledge? That's a good one.
The listed objections to Les's and troll's pointed remarks only confirm me in the long-held belief that the liberal mindset is the greatest obstacle to true democracy.
But perhaps there is an intricate connection between liberalism and the Anglo-Saxon genes and xenophobic culture, prudish and estranged from the self (the body). It must search for happiness outside of the self: hence the value placed on success.
Liberalism may well be a way of mitigating the deleterious effects of estranged and misused lives, an understandable reaction, but it isn't a cure. It, too, is a symptom of the same disease.
56 - Glenn Contrarian
Roger -
But perhaps there is an intricate connection between liberalism and the Anglo-Saxon genes and xenophobic culture, prudish and estranged from the self (the body). It must search for happiness outside of the self: hence the value placed on success.
First, ALL cultures are to some extent xenophobic - such is not a function of culture, but of humanity. Those cultures which are less xenophobic are merely those that have been forced (by economic necessity, religious stricture, or idealism by the leaders) to accept those who would otherwise not belong. AND it is the liberal personality that you decry which is most accepting of those who are different, whereas the conservative mindset is less accepting of the same. Or are you referring to a different definition of liberalism?
Second, are you perhaps more accepting of those cultures where the religion encourages introspection? For as far as I can tell, with the possible exception of feudal Japan, there's absolutely zero cultures where cultural emphasis on introspection arose from non-religious influences.
57 - Igor
I interrupt this stream of internecine BC warfare to return for a moment to the original topic, which was Obamas reputed gaffe about "...you didn't build that...".
It's been reported to me that Romney said exactly the same thing to the 2002 Olympians at the opening ceremonies. (I understand this started being reported about July 23 so I apologize for being tardy, but I don't watch USA TV news, or any commercial TV, preferring DW-TV, BBC, NHK, France24, RT or Taiwan Report, etc., which seems to filter out the more egregious mudslinging).
Not that any of that makes any difference, IMO. Of course people who strive and achieve are aided greatly by society. It was true when Romney said it and it was true when Obama said it.
What's interesting to me is that anyone, including our own Sidney and Riley, chose to make an issue about that statement. Of course, each reporter is telling us of their own bias. But it's such a weak argument as to make one wonder at their naivete. Especially since the Romney comment seems to have surfaced about July 23 and the S&R editorial was published 2 days later on July 25. Did they just plow ahead with the diatribe even though the ready rebuttal was staring them in the face?
One might suppose that having composed such a diatribe it would have been difficult for S&R to abandon their handiwork merely because it was mistaken, so they published anyway, figuring to bury their mistake in the general rightist clamor surrounding Obamas remark.
The whole thing just detracts from S&Rs credibility as observers of politics. They seem to show little of their famous left-brain capability and just go off on conventional rightist propaganda in the right echo chamber.
Sorry for the interruption. You can go back to Hatfields vs. McCoys, or whatever.
58 - troll
...El Bicho nailed this echo in comment #2 - hardly seemed any reason to comment further on it
(hey Roger - drop me an e-mail and let me know how things are shaking out for you after your move)
59 - Christopher Rose
Roger's continued sniping at liberalism still puzzles me; I've still yet to read anything from him that was anything other than liberal or, far worse, purely philosophical and nothing at all that was either iconoclastic or practical.
C'mon, Roger, knock off the pointless posturing and gives us real something to chew on...
60 - Glenn Contrarian
Chris -
I think Roger's referring to a different definition of liberalism than that which most of us use.
61 - Christopher Rose
Yeah, maybe, Glenn, but even if that is the case, we still need to move on from mere rhetoric...
62 - roger nowosielski
The Europeans, e.g., the French, the Spanish, the Italians, are less estranged from or ashamed of their bodies than the Anglo-Saxons. They're more prone to enjoy life, whether by their eating habits, the time they take, conversation being an integral part of food consumption, part of the ritual. This is a foreign concept to us, everything's fast food or food on the go. Breast feeding in public, e.g., is quite common in European cultures but an abomination in ours. We are ashamed of our bodies, of our bodily functions, ashamed of and estranged from nature. An Anglo-Saxon is a denaturalized/denatured man, more xenophobic and more prudish than any other. Which is why he needs an object outside of the self to satisfy his cravings. And so, the notion of success becomes a cult-like object.
(Random thoughts on how the Anglo-Saxons may appear to people from other cultures)
63 - Christopher Rose
Stereotypes now?
Yikes!
64 - Dr Dreadful
And how.
There are at least 18 stereotypes in Roger's #62 and possibly as many as 24. Pretty impressive work.
65 - troll
...Chris #59 - while one might question the practical need for (and maybe even the desirability of) an articulated conceptual framework for 'the movement' and while he has yet to justify (convincingly enough for his liberal audience anyway) his claims that liberal attitudes are destructive to 'true democracy' or provide a fulcrum for iconoclastic action Roger has gone well beyond 'sniping' in his critique
you might not be a big fan of philosophy and the histories of ideas but fair is fair
66 - Cindy
47 - Zingzing
Aug 03, 2012 at 8:52 am
Les, If you see no difference between Obama and Romney, you're not paying attention. You may not like the system, but let's not pretend they're all the same. If you want to say they are, go ahead and think about it for a minute rather than sticking up your generic pose.
This 5 minute video introducing how public opinion is politically controlled should help you see what Les is saying.
CONSTRUCTING PUBLIC OPINION
How Politicians & the Media Misrepresent the Public
Paraphrased summary:
Both parties are the same on monetary issues. They support private healthcare, high defense spending, and the interests of big business.
Our attention is diverted to issues of civil liberties such as gay marriage, abortion, etc. This works effectively to focus us on a few social differences, which ends up convincing us that the candidates are different when they are actually identical in their support of the elite.
67 - roger nowosielski
Of course these are stereotypes, Dreadful. Yet, the fact they draw an intense reaction from some, such as Chris, is quite telling: all stereotypes are to some extent true, though they may not be fair.
For the record, the characterization offered is not mine but arose in the context of a specific conversation. In any case, that's how some (intelligent) blacks who had spent considerable time living in Europe view the American/Anglo-Saxon white culture, and I merely found the pov interesting enough to relate as food for thought. The connection with "liberalism" and objectification of success was just a matter of connecting the dots, simply as a matter of conjecture.
I apologize for the confusion by not making it clear that I wasn't necessarily speaking in my own voice.
68 - troll
Cindy - I've spent several fun hours on the MEF site since you posted it...thought I should say thanks
69 - Cindy
troll, thanks. it is good to know that someone has taken a look and gotten something out of that site.
70 - Christopher Rose
troll, we'll have to differ on that one; I think I've had the opportunity to read everything Roger has written and don't recall anything that has ever amounted to more than sniping against liberalism which, as far as I am aware, is the least bad practical political philosophy.
Furthermore, as his own remarks are nothing but based on liberal thought, to criticise it so frequently as he does, whilst seemingly displaying no awareness of that contradiction, nor anything by way of an advance upon liberalism, nor any practical steps to implement any upgrading, refining or progression of it, seems to be nothing more than posturing to me, which is largely what contemporary philosophy has sadly become.
When that is combined with his constant poor comprehension of the views of others expressed here and the accompanying mis-characterisation of those remarks, what is left revealed is neither compelling nor even coherent and lacking in any degree of intellectual discipline or rigour.
71 - Christopher Rose
Cindy, I hesitate to engage with you again as the last time I made an entirely reasonable response to one of your points you lost it but yet again I find myself thinking that your point is both true yet only partial and also not at all new.
Surely the perception that our governments and the media are giving us partial and subjective views and information is at least as old as politics itself?
There are, of course, clear differences between Obama and Romney, but also much that they have in common; such is the nature of the contemporary political game.
I completely agree that a new and better politics is called for and probably long overdue but until Western democracies have their own "Spring" like moments I doubt the political plates will make the necessary tectonic shifts.
72 - Christopher Rose
Roger, probably nobody doubts the existence of stereotypes, least of all myself, but they are at best a limited and limiting social definer at best and to characterise any grouping exclusively in those terms is simply absurd and dishonest.
Equally absurd and dishonest is your weak attempt to portray my three word mockery of your laziness as an "intense reaction".
Now we at least know that you were merely regurgitating someone else's intellectual laziness, although whether they are in fact "intelligent" insights remains in some considerable doubt...
73 - roger nowosielski
My bad, Chris. Intense is not a term one should ever ascribe to you. But mockery or not, and mockery is your favorite stylistic habit, it is a form of reaction. (Didn't mean to get personal, dude, though am hardly surprised you took it that way.)
As to your take on the quality of my thought and written works, rest assured I expect nothing constructive from you, just so you know.
74 - Christopher Rose
Roger, your attempts at provocation are as ineffective as your comprehension is limited.
I'm often intense, although dealing with you rarely requires it.
I suppose you could call my #63 mockery at a stretch, although I intended it as something lighter and hopefully funnier.
I don't really mind what you expect from me, but I expect anyone who wants to be taken seriously, and you so obviously want to be taken seriously, to be able to able to understand ideas clearly and then build on that. As your comprehension of input is so clearly and deeply flawed, it seems of little point to take your output that seriously.
One of the major problems with internet based communication in spaces like this is that many people aren't really interested in engaging in dialogue and don't seem able to understand other people's words as well as they might in an actual conversation. The main interest seems to be in output only, which I think is an opportunity lost.
Thankfully there are some that have the ability to receive as well as transmit and for that one must be grateful.
75 - roger nowosielski
The so-called attempts at provocation, Chris, are only in your own head. You do seem suffer from an exaggerated opinion of yourself.
In any case, I've long found you one of the least persons on this site worthwhile of engaging; so no, provoking you was the last thing on my mind.
Don't let it bother you, though. Keep on pluggin'.