Recent Comments

1. about 6 years ago on Michael Ramirez

   nance19oped: There were TWELVE bump stocks found in the room in Las Vegas and they weren’t in “wrappers”.

   You don’t need bump stocks to fire multiple rounds successively per minute.

   nance19oped: Plus your answer to Baba O’Reilly is incorrect — a high-capacity magazine was used in Thousand Oaks which is illegal in CA.

   Again, the number of rounds that a magazine could hold is immaterial if the shooter can combat load a magazine with rounds to replace an empty magazine. Assuming that a high capacity magazine is one that holds more than 10 rounds… A shooter willing to part with an empty magazine, especially a shooter that intends to die during the assault, can release an empty magazine, combat load a loaded magazine, and keep firing, without looking at the weapon, and without having much of a down time. Magazine capacity is moot.

2. about 6 years ago on Michael Ramirez

   nance19oped: This isn’t “charity”.

   Much of what you want the government to do should be done by the free market. This is driven by consumer and business demand. This demand motivates businesses, including companies, to shell out investments so that they could meet the demand and outdo the competition. With regards to energy sources, demands are more towards fossil fuels, coal, and other traditional forms of energy production.

   nance19oped: The government should also be doing a better job of supporting higer education.

   Higher education should compete in the free market, and get their funding from such. It’s not the government’s job to keep pumping money into these schools. The idea that more money has to be spent for more learning to occur is baloney. Subject a fo- profit school, or a traditional university, to the free market, to include being held accountable to the free market for its performance, and you’ll get incentive to improve the quality of education.

   You could see the difference between our higher education (responsible in large part to the free market) and our public K-12 schools (government funded, shielded in large part from the free market economy).

   nance19oped: Jobs require a knowledge of technology and the U.S, should be training the populace to be able to handle SKILLED jobs.

   There are programs and schools to teach the population skilled jobs. Unfortunately, more people want to go to college, and major in useless degrees, than there are people that want to enter schools that teach people a value, usable, skill.

3. about 6 years ago on Michael Ramirez

   nance19oped: Spend it on things like infrastructure improvements and maintenance, development of renewables, research in a variety of areas.

   These are things that the free market should be doing. In those areas where the government does the work, those areas should be outsourced to private organizations, or privatized. The free market economy does better at these things than the government.

   An example is driving on roads that are tolled versus driving on roads directly maintained by the government. Roads that you have to pay a toll for tend to be of better quality than equivalent roads that aren’t tolled. This is an example of where the free market is leveraged.

   I’ve seen a result of government attempting to do infrastructure improvement and maintenance. It so happens that not far from it a commercial development is occuring. Two years later, the initial “dirt/sand” material that the government brought in is now a man-made hill, with vegetation that changes colors with the season. Where the commercial development is? One business establishment completely torn down and rebuilt, another building in construction… multi story, with parking lot forming.

   The government construction and maintenance, for its part, is still spinning its wheels.

   Renewable energy? The government attempted, and many of those attempts failed. This isn’t something that you get the government to do. This is something for the free market. If enough consumers, via their pocket book, demand alternative energy sources, corporations would put more effort into developing alternative fuel sources.

   The reality is that both business and consumers demand energy that’s based on nonrenewable concepts.

   In the free market, demand drives where business resources go. This is true regarding energy, this is true with anything else.

4. about 6 years ago on Michael Ramirez

   nance19oped: @Bar Pluc Try thinking outside of your bubble.

   You don’t have a leg to stand on demanding that others do what you refuse to do.

   nance19oped: The government should be spending money during economic downturns to stimulate the economy.

   The best thing that the government should do, to stimulate the economy, is to stay out of the free market’s way. If there are government regulations on the economy, that are stifling it, then those regulations should be removed. This has been proven historically.

   For example, in the beginning of the 1920s, there was an economic depression. The government did nothing. Result? An economic boom that’s known as “The roaring 20s”. There was another economic downturn at the end of the 1920s/early 1930s. The government jumped in and did what you say it should do during downturns. Result? The Great Depression.

5. about 6 years ago on Michael Ramirez

   ArchieAmes: The closing of the asylums was actually more the doing of the mental health patient activists.

   There were other developments as well. For example, the findings that having them interact with the community was beneficial to them, their development, to their well-being, etc. The changes, to how the mentally ill were interacted with, and administered, would’ve happened regardless of whether Ronald Reagan won public office or not. That’s an area that’s still evolving and changing today.

   ArchieAmes: They didn’t want anybody locked up against their will whereas if you’re a stereotypical conservative you’d want them off the streets away from view.

   Your last sentence is a contradiction. Locking people up, and away from view, simply because they fit one description or another, and not for a valid reason, isn’t conservatism. Conservatives don’t want to lock people up against their will if such actions aren’t justified.

6. about 6 years ago on Michael Ramirez

   twclix You’re a tiresome fellow, and not worth any more of my time.

   If I weren’t worth any more of your time, you wouldn’t have even made this reply. Your response proved you wrong. You’re not the first one that said that to me after having an argument thoroughly destroyed.

7. about 6 years ago on Michael Ramirez

   Baba O’Reilly: Only opinion.

   First, in order to dismiss my arguments as “only opinion”, you have to advance an effective counter argument. You’ve failed to do so. In fact, you didn’t address any of my arguments, despite your history of rebutting other posters on this thread.

   Second, when the opposition dismisses my arguments as “opinions”, without effectively supporting their own statement, they’re reacting to the fact that they got destroyed in debate. “Much better” to dismiss a fact based, reasoned, logical argument as nothing but an “opinion”, or claim/insinuate that one never read my posts, than to deal with the fact that they realize that their arguments were destroyed and they have no real counter argument.

   If all I did was provide an opinion, you’d easily be able to answer these questions that I asked you earlier.

   Here’s a copy and paste:

   Did the NRA tell these criminals to use a gun to commit an offense? YES [ ] NO [ ]

   Did these criminals decide to use these weapons? YES [ ] NO [ ]

   Did gun laws prevent criminals, who lost the right to own and operate weapons, from having weapons ultimately used in the commission of their crimes? YES [ ] NO [ ]

   Copy and paste these questions, along with the YES/NO options, to your reply. Put an “X” in the box that represents your reply, and spare me any amplifying explanation you’d be tempted to add.

   To those that I rebutted above, as well as those that agree with them, I expect you guys to also answer these questions per the parameters that I set if you reply to me.

8. about 6 years ago on Michael Ramirez

   Baba O’Reilly: Not even close — the first few basically spoke to the author

   False. If nobody read anything that I posted, nobody would’ve replied to me. Also, I know that you’ve seen the replies that were made after I made the bulk of my posts, as you liked the posts attempting to argue back. This isn’t a case of people initially responding to me, then nothing. Even if you scroll right through to see who posted, you’d see that people were responding to me throughout the time I was posting.

   Baba O’Reilly: loving the sound of his own keyboard.

   First, I use speech to text for the vast majority of my replies.

   Second, I enjoy watching the opposition’s feeble attempts to stand their ground advancing an extremely flawed argument.

   Third, by continuing to argue a topic that they clearly don’t know much about, they expose their psychological profiles… Something that I exploit in my follow-on replies.

   Baba O’Reilly: And not. One. Single. Citation.

   False. In one of the posts that I posted, destroying your arguments, I posted a reference to a New York Times article that debunked your claims that Ronald Reagan started the gutting. Turned out that what you accused Ronald Reagan of doing was actually started by his predecessors.

   But wait! There’s more! If you use the “Control F” function, and type in “www”, you’d notice that I provided additional references.

   Don’t you get tired of being wrong?

9. about 6 years ago on Michael Ramirez

   NeoconMan: I wonder if anyone at all read all that dreck.

   If you didn’t read anything that I posted, you don’t have a leg to stand on calling it a “dreck”. Absent knowledge of what I said, you don’t have any basis to describe my arguments. If nobody read anything that I posted, nobody would’ve replied to me. I could tell, by the reactions of those that I counter rebutted, that they did read what I posted and that they didn’t like what I said.

10. about 6 years ago on Michael Ramirez

    twclix: We poor undeserving wretched morons thank you for your superior intellect, your keen discernment, you rigorous logic, impeccable reason and overall genius.

    In your sarcasm, you exposed a Freudian slip. Numerous others have done this as well, in the face of being unable to mount an effective debate. Your intellect is telling you that you just got your rear end handed to you. Your intellect is also telling you that my argument is solid. Even your intellect is seeing that my argument is a fact-based, reasoned, logical argument destroying your own.

    However, your narcissism is blinding you to this reality, protecting your ego in the process. Hence, your sarcasm.

    Realize that I take sadistic pleasure in destroying arguments like yours, and then reading the replies. The more you guys apply, the better picture I have of your psychological profiles… The better I could adjust my own arguments to get the kinds of responses, and attitudes, that I am seeing in your replies.

    Coming back here, the next day, to read your responses, is like being a kid on Christmas morning anticipating unwrapping gifts.