"Peer Pressure" is relatively inoperative with me, though I tend as a rule to avoid behavior which might occasion Legal Difficulties.
timber
timber, "Peer pressure" usually operates while one is in their adolescence. c.i.
I was pretty wierd then, too, c.i.
timber
Believe it or not, I was an outstanding citizen back in my late teens, and I was the only one in our group that didn't smoke or drink.
Made up for lost time very quickly as soon as I finished basic training in the US Air Force.
c.i.
c.i.
Are you telling us you were an nerd. Ha Ha
Yeah, a nerd with a C - D grade average.
The only B I received was for running the projector in the history class in my 11th grade.
c.i.
I am very liberal
I think we should eliminate all taxes, eventually. There should be no reason that the people that have benefitted the most pay to help the people that have little, but we are not communist or marxist. We need to develop into a perpetual motion machine that will get everyone a bite of the apple. WIll it happen, never, but we should start by eliminating the income tax and work from there.
zed
I don't know. There are many countries where the tax level is higher than the US where folks are just as happy. So it becomes a little unclear as to what the advantage would be, in reality.
blatham, Can you for our edification on Canada's income tax system, what an average middle class income, percent of taxes paid, and what benefits are provided by the government in your part of the country? c.i.
ci
I'm afraid you'll have to remain unedified, if I'm the only one you ask this of. I am uncomfortable with numbers, having found them to possess characteristics not dissimilar from women - pretending to be a thing, absolute and unwavering, but once in the wrong sort of company, they become a different thing altogether - perhaps a little thinner or even a lot fuller and then they swear they've always been that way. That they don't cry or hit me with frying pans allows me to differentiate.
blatham, How about using a "john doe" example, and not your own? Just guestimates would be fine. For example, here in California, our income is about $75,000, and our federal income tax rate is 28 percent. Our California income tax rate is 9 percent, but we also have 8.25 sales tax in our county. My wife still works three days a week, but I've been retired for five years. My wife and I both receive social security - combined about $30,000/year. I'm on Medicare, but I don't have any Part A co-pay, because my wife works for Kaiser Permanente, an HMO. I don't have per visit or drug co-pays, because I'm considered as having 'double' coverage. The government takes out about $55 from my social security benefit every month for Medicare. You see? This can be almost any John and Jane in Silicon Valley, but it gives a rough picture of our income, taxes, and government benefits. c.i.
WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?
GEORGE W. BUSH
I don't think I should have to answer that question.
PAT BUCHANAN
To steal a job from a decent, hard-working American.
RUSH LIMBAUGH
I don't know why the chicken crossed the road, but I'll bet it was
getting a government grant to cross the road, and I'll bet someone
out there is already forming a support group to help chickens with
crossing-the-road syndrome. Can you believe this? How much more of
this can real Americans take? Chickens crossing the road paid for by
their tax dollars, and when I say tax dollars, I'm talking about
your money, money the government took from you to build roads for
chickens to cross.
JERRY FALWELL
Because the chicken was gay! Isn't it obvious? Can't you people
see the plain truth in front of your face? The chicken was going to
the "other side." That's what they call it - the other side. Yes, my
friends, that chicken is gay. And, if you eat that chicken, you will
become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this
abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless
phrases like "the other side."
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
To die. In the rain. Alone.
BARBARA WALTERS
Isn't that interesting? In a few moments we will be listening to
the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart-warming story of how
it a serious case of molting and went on to accomplish its life-long
dream of crossing the road.
SADDAM HUSSEIN
This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified
in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.
RONALD REAGAN
What chicken?
Ah Snood -- a really nice post! Particularly Limbaugh.
Ronnie Reagan has seen better days. c.i.
I've received that my E mail a few times, Snood. Still very funny.
I've received PMs that I should delete my 'joke' - because of its "impropriety" in context with the threads "theme". I might have complied, but didn't like how I was asked.
What's the consensus here, about thread originators asking someone to delete posts they consider incongruous?
snood
I think a request to delete is valid where a debate guideline violation of some severity has occured, but I don't see that here.
snood, I think you'll know it if you ever go "overboard."
c.i.
snood - I asked privately and as courteously as I could, because I thought that the best way to handle it. I considered it a small matter, but having made an issue of a comment Lash Goth (a conservative) made way back, I thought it would not be a big deal to ask you to remove the joke. I am disappointed that you did not read it the way it was intended. It was intended to be a reasonable request made to a reasonable person.
The issue for me was simply that I had asked people to avoid using this discussion to make disparaging comments or attacks at the other side. The bit you shared is funny, but I felt like it crossed this line. I very much wanted to avoid contentious debate in this discussion, and think we've done so until now.
Anyhow, leave it or don't at this point. It's your call.
