living in shame isn't synonymous with living a life of shame or living in perpetual shame?
Well, it seems like it's just a matter of degree to me :P
Really? Honestly it doesn't to me. I feel shame/guilt/remorse for past actions, but I don't live in shame, guilt or remorse. To live in shame, it seems to me, implies that you feel it all the time --ie, for your life. Or perpetually.
living in shame isn't synonymous with living a life of shame or living in perpetual shame?
Well, it seems like it's just a matter of degree to me :P
Really? Honestly it doesn't to me. I feel shame/guilt/remorse for past actions, but I don't live in shame, guilt or remorse. To live in shame, it seems to me, implies that you feel it all the time --ie, for your life. Or perpetually.
Do you continue to regret every bad thing you've ever done?
living in shame isn't synonymous with living a life of shame or living in perpetual shame?
Well, it seems like it's just a matter of degree to me :P
Really? Honestly it doesn't to me. I feel shame/guilt/remorse for past actions, but I don't live in shame, guilt or remorse. To live in shame, it seems to me, implies that you feel it all the time --ie, for your life. Or perpetually.
You mean like 70 years after the fact, sort of thing?
And the "just a matter of degree" is a joke referring to my comment on the previous page about the synonymous guilt/shame thing. Probably one of those jokes where I laugh at my own cleverness and then everyone in the room looks at me like I'm crazy, which I am.
E: but seriously you're being disingenuous if you think adding "perpetual" and "a life of" doesn't change the degree of "living in shame" I was serious on that count.
Well, I'm not 70, but yep, I feel bad about things I did as a kid.
edit: well, I didn't intend to overstate it, I really think living in shame is the same as living a life of shame or living in perpetual shame. I apologize if others don't and it appeared that I was misrepresenting Evander.
living in shame isn't synonymous with living a life of shame or living in perpetual shame?
Well, it seems like it's just a matter of degree to me :P
Really? Honestly it doesn't to me. I feel shame/guilt/remorse for past actions, but I don't live in shame, guilt or remorse. To live in shame, it seems to me, implies that you feel it all the time --ie, for your life. Or perpetually.
Do you continue to regret every bad thing you've ever done?
Living a life of shame = doing something you know is wrong, and surviving off it because that's what's needed. That job you hold, even though it does more harm than good. You can stop that.
Perpetual shame is having done something so fucking horrid in the past, you can't out do it, you can't out fund it, you can't make it go away. That school you targeted, that guy you tortured. You can't undo that.
Collaborate implies that he pointed out other Jews to be targeted. He did not. What he did do was say "I am a Christian" and was then given a job, that would have been given to anyone else in which he confiscated property.
If he didn't do the job the job would have still been done, except that maybe he might have been in more danger. Frankly i can't find anything wrong with that or to be guilty or shameful about.
KROFT: For example that, 'I'm Jewish and here I am, watching these people go. I could just as easily be there. I should be there.' None of that?
Mr. SOROS: Well, of course I c–I could be on the other side or I could be the one from whom the thing is being taken away. But there was no sense that I shouldn't be there, because that was – well, actually, in a funny way, it's just like in markets – that if I weren't there – of course, I wasn't doing it, but somebody else would would be taking it away anyhow. And it was the – whether I was there or not, I was only a spectator, the property was being taken away. So the – I had no role in taking away that property. So I had no sense of guilt.
I don't like Bush or Palin or the Iraq war either, but seriously: "If I didn't do it, someone else would have." WTF
You have NO IDEA what you are talking about here.
Plenty of Jews were forced to do horrible things to live. Insisting that they live in shame is HORRIBLE, and only serves to further the damage done by Hitler and his Nazis.
Eh, half of my family (dads side) was pretty much whipped out. Only three survivors. My dad survived 3 camps.
Knowing what he went through explains a lot, it doesn't excuse it, but it explains it.
You understand, then that assisting in confiscation of property meant that he actually got off pretty easy compared to what some of our family members were forced to do.
This has NOTHING to do with his activities post war, and the fact that it gets used as an attack on him honestly belies a very scary anti-semitism out there amongst the conservatives, wherein Jews are a novelty where some are to be kept as court jews, while the rest are to be disdained.
Completely. Personal story, but I guess applicable to this thread. My dad is in his 80's now, he's Hungarian. He came home and his entire family had been carted off and he got caught by the Nazi's. He went to Aushwitz, Berknow, and Drakow. Survived all of them. Mainly by making sure he worked the ovens since the labor was easier there and making eagles out of soap and tar for the Nazi's.
Three members survived, all of them evidently did various things to save their hides. One is in Israel, the other died about a decade ago.
My dad has a personal war with the holocaust museum, mainly because several of the pictures he had were far to "graphic" to be displayed, and having seen them and seen what's there, that place looks like Disney theme park.
So you don't have to lecture me about what people had to do, nor do you have to lecture me about what is, and isn't, a fair attack. Completely on the other hand, Soros sorry fate has been used shied him from valid attacks.
There is nothing valid about comparing him to a supporter of Hitler, and you damn well know it. You know it better than most of the folks in this thread.
Shall we move beyond this, though? I want to hear a greater explaination from you about why a man who has done ill in the past should not be allowed to do good in the present. WHy is it better for charities to refuse his money, rather than to let some good finally come of it?
Doing good things doesn't absolve you of past crimes.
Furthermore, anybody trying to fix problems taking cash from past crimes and then claiming to use them to solve current ones is at best a hypocrite of the highest level. They should all be shunned and tossed out like yesterdays trash.
If Soros touched it, destroy it. If you don't, you actively promote crime.
As the saying goes, "even from ill intentions, some good may come"
Why destroy it when you can reclaim it? UNless your claim is that SOros earned the money SO THAT he could donate it (he didn't, it's pretty clear that he earned the money so that HE could have money), then excepting a couple hundred thousand dollars from a BILLIONAIRE does not encourage anything.
It proves the fact that even if you try to take down national banks, and are one of the biggest jackasses alive, all will be forgiven, all is OK, as long as you march to the liberal trumpet.
Brown shirts on, salut smartly now boys, we've got some issue to attend to. All will be forgiven, for the greater good and ultimate cause.
Go progressives!
Why do you have to forgive some one in order to take their money?
Evander on
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denihilistAncient and MightyRegistered User, Moderatormod
edited September 2010
Just popping in here to remind everyone you don't fight the hypo. Also the jew/nazi thing is pretty tired guys. It's intellectually weak and boring to the point of tears.
Goumindong, since you're here, I was curious about your perspective on Soros's involvement in Black Wednesday. How much responsibility do you feel he has for that event?
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
edited September 2010
I've been out with friends tonight, but you guys should listen to denihilist. Let's leave the collaborator tangent behind and focus on the namesake of the thread.
Goumindong, since you're here, I was curious about your perspective on Soros's involvement in Black Wednesday. How much responsibility do you feel he has for that event?
KROFT: For example that, 'I'm Jewish and here I am, watching these people go. I could just as easily be there. I should be there.' None of that?
Mr. SOROS: Well, of course I c–I could be on the other side or I could be the one from whom the thing is being taken away. But there was no sense that I shouldn't be there, because that was – well, actually, in a funny way, it's just like in markets – that if I weren't there – of course, I wasn't doing it, but somebody else would would be taking it away anyhow. And it was the – whether I was there or not, I was only a spectator, the property was being taken away. So the – I had no role in taking away that property. So I had no sense of guilt.
I don't like Bush or Palin or the Iraq war either, but seriously: "If I didn't do it, someone else would have." WTF
You have NO IDEA what you are talking about here.
Plenty of Jews were forced to do horrible things to live. Insisting that they live in shame is HORRIBLE, and only serves to further the damage done by Hitler and his Nazis.
He feels no shame/guilt about any of the people's lives he's destroyed since he became an adult, if you missed that part.
Should Tony Hayward feel bad about the oil spill? Or should he say "Hey, if we didn't drill there, someone else would have" and "the societal consequences of my/BP's actions, so long as those actions are driven by self-interest, are not my/BP's concern"?
That's why I bolded what I did - his reasoning that if he wasn't there doing it someone else would have been, so really he had nothing to do with it - rather than focusing on his actual actions. Which was also reflected in the answer to PBS about his business philosophy - ie, "hey, the market is amoral so in order to be successful in it one must be amoral as well - and if those immoral actions hurt somebody, that's their problem."
(pg 139)As an anonymous participant in financial markets, I never had to weigh the social consequences of my actions. I was aware that in some circumstances the consequences might be harmful, but I felt justified in ignoring them on the grounds that I was playing by the rules. The game was competitive, and if I imposed additional constraints on myself I would end up a loser. Moreover, I realized that personal scruples make no difference to the outcome: If I abstained, somebody else would take my place.
...
When I sold sterling short in 1992, the Bank of England was on the other side of my transactions, and I was in effect taking money out of the pockets of British taxpayers. But if I had tried to take social consequences into account, it would have thrown off my risk-reward calculation, and my profits would have been reduced.
Hey, as long as cigarettes are legal, there is absolutely nothing wrong with trying to get as many people addicted to them as possible. Societal consequences, like people dying of cancer, should never be taken into account if they stand to harm the company's profit in any manner. The CEO of Phillip Morris bears no responsibility for any of the actions he undertakes in the name of company profit, as long as they're legal, because if he didn't take those actions then the company would just replace him with someone who did.
In fact, under that philosophy I don't see why the same standard wouldn't apply for, say, pre-Civil War slaveowners. What those slaveowners did was legal, and maximized their profits. And if Slaveowner X didn't buy a particular slave, Slaveowner Y would have.
tl;dr - George Soros: "Lawful Evil is no worse than Lawful Good."
Dont we apply those standards to pre civil war slave owners already?
I mean, consider the founding fathers. We tease about it, yes, but haven't we forgiven tthem all for owning people, even Jefferson, who was maybe raping his slaves. No one says "we can't accept the nation built by those founders, they owned slaves."
Goumindong, since you're here, I was curious about your perspective on Soros's involvement in Black Wednesday. How much responsibility do you feel he has for that event?
Okay, so far the two big economic scandals we're seeing:
1) He bailed out of a currency that was clearly going to tank.
2) He was convicted of insider trading nearly 20 years after the fact even though the French stock market regulatory agency said he didn't do anything wrong.
So he's probably not a saint, but no worse than any other really rich guy.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
So he's probably not a saint, but no worse than any other really rich guy.
All I'm getting out of this is that one side likes/tolerates him because he supports their causes and the other hates him because he doesn't want to play in their sandbox.
His involvement with the Gnomes of Zurich remains unknown.
Jademonkey79 on
"We’re surrounded. That simplifies our problem of getting to these people and killing them."
Dont we apply those standards to pre civil war slave owners already?
I mean, consider the founding fathers. We tease about it, yes, but haven't we forgiven tthem all for owning people, even Jefferson, who was maybe raping his slaves. No one says "we can't accept the nation built by those founders, they owned slaves."
However the founding fathers aren't around to be repentant. Soros is still around, and yet apparently feels no guilt about his amoral financial dealings as shown in the book BubbaT quoted. Its also really odd that he openly opposes market fundamentalism whilst also using the efficency of the market ("someone else would do it") to cover his own amorality.
Thus while his philanthropy should be lauded, the altruism of his activism might be slightly suspect, as well as the basic problem of a single using large amounts of money to influence the political process in various countries.
However the founding fathers aren't around to be repentant. Soros is still around, and yet apparently feels no guilt about his amoral financial dealings as shown in the book BubbaT quoted. Its also really odd that he openly opposes market fundamentalism whilst also using the efficency of the market ("someone else would do it") to cover his own amorality.
Thus while his philanthropy should be lauded, the altruism of his activism might be slightly suspect, as well as the basic problem of a single using large amounts of money to influence the political process in various countries.
I don't see what the problem is.
Consider the situation:
He can either
A: Short sterling and make a bunch of money then use some of that money to correct the problems of the market
B: Not short sterling and let someone else make a bunch of money and NOT use some of that money to correct the problems of the market.
Is the market going to get better if a fundamentalist exploits it then uses the money to promote market fundamentalism?
Dont we apply those standards to pre civil war slave owners already?
I mean, consider the founding fathers. We tease about it, yes, but haven't we forgiven tthem all for owning people, even Jefferson, who was maybe raping his slaves. No one says "we can't accept the nation built by those founders, they owned slaves."
No? I consider pre-1860 slaveowning in America to be a pretty significant moral failing, regardless of how legal and profit-maximizing it was. I'm not a fan of companies in 3rd world countries that use sweatshop labor, or trade in blood diamonds, or wreck the environment, regardless of whether those actions are legal in the countries where they occur.
That goes for German companies who profited off Nazi policies, too. I don't accept "It was a good investment, and if we didn't do it someone else would have" as a morally justifiable reason for Deutsche Bank to help finance Auschwitz.
There's also another thing. Even if the slaveowners were completely unrepentant, even if they endorsed slavery, I would still expect them to acknowledge their personal role and responsibility in its existence/promotion. Soros is a player in the game, yet abdicates any responsibility for the outcome as if he were merely a spectator, a agency-less leaf being blown about on the winds of fate and chance.
As an aside, I don't think any of this has more than 0.0001% to do with why the right hates Soros. I'd hardly be surprised if many on the right shared Soros' views when it comes to business.
I consider pre-1860 slaveowning in America to be a pretty significant moral failing, regardless of how legal and profit-maximizing it was.
But do you refuse to benefit from their works?
I am not defending Soros' business behaviors. I will only go so far as to call him "part of the problem", rather than "the entire problem."
The idea that we should refuse his money because of how he got it, though, seems so odd to me, because it seems to only be applied when people also just so happen to disagree with the money going to that thing in the first place.
I consider pre-1860 slaveowning in America to be a pretty significant moral failing, regardless of how legal and profit-maximizing it was.
But do you refuse to benefit from their works?
I am not defending Soros' business behaviors. I will only go so far as to call him "part of the problem", rather than "the entire problem."
The idea that we should refuse his money because of how he got it, though, seems so odd to me, because it seems to only be applied when people also just so happen to disagree with the money going to that thing in the first place.
I don't know. I'd like to think I wouldn't take money made off the misery of others in the name of the ends justifying the means, but I've never really been in a position where I've had to make that choice. I have a feeling everyone is going to draw the line in a different place on that question.
I consider pre-1860 slaveowning in America to be a pretty significant moral failing, regardless of how legal and profit-maximizing it was.
But do you refuse to benefit from their works?
I am not defending Soros' business behaviors. I will only go so far as to call him "part of the problem", rather than "the entire problem."
The idea that we should refuse his money because of how he got it, though, seems so odd to me, because it seems to only be applied when people also just so happen to disagree with the money going to that thing in the first place.
There is a difference. You can't avoid interacting with someone that was produced by slave labor in this country. It's just a sad fact of the way things are. However, nobody has slaves in this country today in this country.
On the other hand, you don't have to accept money from crooked business moguls. You can simply say no. Just like you can also not buy goods made by child labor, if you so chose. You do have those choices.
Now if you accept it or not is up to you. But if you do accept it you need to deal with the issues, and it becomes a fair line of attack that you are associating with a crook, who is vicious, and really can't be for the little guy.
Which is what taking the cash proves.
Having worked in an organization that has to source funds where they come from is really important.
I consider pre-1860 slaveowning in America to be a pretty significant moral failing, regardless of how legal and profit-maximizing it was.
But do you refuse to benefit from their works?
I am not defending Soros' business behaviors. I will only go so far as to call him "part of the problem", rather than "the entire problem."
The idea that we should refuse his money because of how he got it, though, seems so odd to me, because it seems to only be applied when people also just so happen to disagree with the money going to that thing in the first place.
I don't know. I'd like to think I wouldn't take money made off the misery of others in the name of the ends justifying the means, but I've never really been in a position where I've had to make that choice. I have a feeling everyone is going to draw the line in a different place on that question.
And I think, quite ironically, what you will see is people are only okay with the larger benefits (like your entire country being founded on it.)
It's easy to be a moral mouthpiece when you don't have to give up much. It's hypocritical to say that an organization can't take 750,000 bucks off of a guy, and then turn around and insist that it is too much of a hardship to avoid benefiting off of suffering yourself.
You can't avoid interacting with someone that was produced by slave labor in this country.
Point being, leave this country. Go to Liberia, or something.
Or is there some magic line in the sand that you are going to now refuse to point out where ti is (but insist that it exists) for five pages?
You can't go anywhere in the world where at some point there were not slaves.
Soros is a stinker. You don't have to take money from him. And you can get called out on it if you do. If you take money from the likes of Soros, you are taking money from a shady business man. And Soros has very much justified the hatred against him.
I don't have a choice in what happened in this country in the past, nor is there a current slave owner now. Would I take money from someone involved in the sex slave trade, nope. I can avoid that. And the Dems could avoid taking money from Soros, but, money talks.
You can't avoid interacting with someone that was produced by slave labor in this country.
Point being, leave this country. Go to Liberia, or something.
Or is there some magic line in the sand that you are going to now refuse to point out where ti is (but insist that it exists) for five pages?
You can't go anywhere in the world where at some point there were not slaves.
Soros is a stinker. You don't have to take money from him. And you can get called out on it if you do. If you take money from the likes of Soros, you are taking money from a shady business man. And Soros has very much justified the hatred against him.
I don't have a choice in what happened in this country in the past, nor is there a current slave owner now. Would I take money from someone involved in the sex slave trade, nope. I can avoid that. And the Dems could avoid taking money from Soros, but, money talks.
You have failed to show how taking Soros' donations encourages him, though.
What about the myriad fo shady businessmen that the republicans take money from?
I thought the problem was that he's an anti-Zionist or something like that and J Street purports to be a Zionist lobby, albeit a liberal one. I don't really know, but if it's not so bad to be taking money from Soros then why did the head of J Street lie about it? That's probably the bigger scandal.
You can't avoid interacting with someone that was produced by slave labor in this country.
Point being, leave this country. Go to Liberia, or something.
Or is there some magic line in the sand that you are going to now refuse to point out where ti is (but insist that it exists) for five pages?
You can't go anywhere in the world where at some point there were not slaves.
Soros is a stinker. You don't have to take money from him. And you can get called out on it if you do. If you take money from the likes of Soros, you are taking money from a shady business man. And Soros has very much justified the hatred against him.
I don't have a choice in what happened in this country in the past, nor is there a current slave owner now. Would I take money from someone involved in the sex slave trade, nope. I can avoid that. And the Dems could avoid taking money from Soros, but, money talks.
You have failed to show how taking Soros' donations encourages him, though.
What about the myriad fo shady businessmen that the republicans take money from?
Tossing out that the repubs are full of shit does not make the dems less full of shit.
As for jstreet. jstreet is full of people that hate Israel and is thankfully laughed off as a joke. They suck, and should be destroyed. That Soros donates to them only proves jstreet tends to the antisemetic, that they tried to hide it is further proof that they should be laughed into the ground.
Dont we apply those standards to pre civil war slave owners already?
I mean, consider the founding fathers. We tease about it, yes, but haven't we forgiven tthem all for owning people, even Jefferson, who was maybe raping his slaves. No one says "we can't accept the nation built by those founders, they owned slaves."
No? I consider pre-1860 slaveowning in America to be a pretty significant moral failing, regardless of how legal and profit-maximizing it was. I'm not a fan of companies in 3rd world countries that use sweatshop labor, or trade in blood diamonds, or wreck the environment, regardless of whether those actions are legal in the countries where they occur.
... but why would it be morally wrong to bet against a currency? The Treasury was attempting to hold the value of sterling far higher than its actual worth as a currency; that action alone reduces the wealth of anyone with debts. Soros didn't trick the Treasury into doing so; John Major ordered the Treasury to spend billions to buy up the pounds then being unloaded onto the markets. Soros borrowed someone else's pounds, cheerfully sold it to the Treasury and other buyers, repaid his lender, and walked away with a massive profit: this is what we mean when we say "if Soros didn't do it, someone else would have"; the Treasury wanted to do itself an injury and Soros sold it the knife. Why would it be Soros' fault? Shouldn't it be the Treasury's fault? (or to be precise, that of the Conservative government?)
If the Bank of England had just devalued instead, the British taxpayer could have walked away with a massive profit, albeit at the cost of creditors. Instead it spent billions of reserves to defend the pound, then gave up and devalued anyway. o_O
I thought the problem was that he's an anti-Zionist or something like that and J Street purports to be a Zionist lobby, albeit a liberal one. I don't really know, but if it's not so bad to be taking money from Soros then why did the head of J Street lie about it? That's probably the bigger scandal.
"Zionist" is an incredibly loaded word that means something different depending on who is saying it. Soros is opposed to the "Israel is always right" type of Zionism which only serves to breed deeper contemtpt for Jews on the world stage. Soros hasn't come out as opposed to the Zionism of Herzl, though, which is the form of Zionism that J Street espouses.
And Ben-Ami didn't lie about Soros. I do admit that the wording was a bit unclear, but it was EXACTLY to avoid this sort of strawmanning that such a thing was done. Soros DID NOT provide the seed money for J Street. Soros IS NOT the largest donor to J Street.
As for jstreet. jstreet is full of people that hate Israel and is thankfully laughed off as a joke. They suck, and should be destroyed. That Soros donates to them only proves jstreet tends to the antisemetic, that they tried to hide it is further proof that they should be laughed into the ground.
How many J Street events have you been to? "Anecdotes olol", I know, but as a J Street U campus liaison (and one living just outside of DC, at that) I've met quite a few J Street staffers, including Ben-Ami and Luria. Not a ONE hated Israel and/or other Jews.
If you weren't banned I'd demand some kind of proof on your end right now. As you clearly can't respond, though, I'm just posting this to defend the character of the many innocent people you've just impugned, for the reference fo everyone else reading this thread.
Evander on
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
If you weren't banned I'd demand some kind of proof on your end right now. As you clearly can't respond, though, I'm just posting this to defend the character of the many innocent people you've just impugned, for the reference fo everyone else reading this thread.
Which wasn't really necessary, because it's nstf. He talked about beating the shit out of children. He's a troll, and if he isn't a troll he's a sociopath.
I think it's the fact that he had the chutzpah to attack the individuals, rather than just the organization. He's not a troll, though, he is just a closed minded bigot.
So, not to necropost, but there is a new developement, namely that Glenn Beck is (once again) spewing anti-semitic bullshit.
In fact, Glenn got so bad that the ADL came down on him (and remember, last time we saw them publicly, they were protesting againt the ground zero mosque...)
Posts
Well, it seems like it's just a matter of degree to me :P
Really? Honestly it doesn't to me. I feel shame/guilt/remorse for past actions, but I don't live in shame, guilt or remorse. To live in shame, it seems to me, implies that you feel it all the time --ie, for your life. Or perpetually.
You mean like 70 years after the fact, sort of thing?
And the "just a matter of degree" is a joke referring to my comment on the previous page about the synonymous guilt/shame thing. Probably one of those jokes where I laugh at my own cleverness and then everyone in the room looks at me like I'm crazy, which I am.
E: but seriously you're being disingenuous if you think adding "perpetual" and "a life of" doesn't change the degree of "living in shame" I was serious on that count.
edit: well, I didn't intend to overstate it, I really think living in shame is the same as living a life of shame or living in perpetual shame. I apologize if others don't and it appeared that I was misrepresenting Evander.
Living a life of shame = doing something you know is wrong, and surviving off it because that's what's needed. That job you hold, even though it does more harm than good. You can stop that.
Perpetual shame is having done something so fucking horrid in the past, you can't out do it, you can't out fund it, you can't make it go away. That school you targeted, that guy you tortured. You can't undo that.
It's not the degree, it's what you can stop.
If he didn't do the job the job would have still been done, except that maybe he might have been in more danger. Frankly i can't find anything wrong with that or to be guilty or shameful about.
Why do you have to forgive some one in order to take their money?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showpost.php?p=16758806&postcount=48
He feels no shame/guilt about any of the people's lives he's destroyed since he became an adult, if you missed that part.
Should Tony Hayward feel bad about the oil spill? Or should he say "Hey, if we didn't drill there, someone else would have" and "the societal consequences of my/BP's actions, so long as those actions are driven by self-interest, are not my/BP's concern"?
That's why I bolded what I did - his reasoning that if he wasn't there doing it someone else would have been, so really he had nothing to do with it - rather than focusing on his actual actions. Which was also reflected in the answer to PBS about his business philosophy - ie, "hey, the market is amoral so in order to be successful in it one must be amoral as well - and if those immoral actions hurt somebody, that's their problem."
http://books.google.com/books?id=8asjLVtbx7gC&dq=george+soros+open+society&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=oF2kTImUKYLSsAPZ47j9Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=sterling&f=false
Hey, as long as cigarettes are legal, there is absolutely nothing wrong with trying to get as many people addicted to them as possible. Societal consequences, like people dying of cancer, should never be taken into account if they stand to harm the company's profit in any manner. The CEO of Phillip Morris bears no responsibility for any of the actions he undertakes in the name of company profit, as long as they're legal, because if he didn't take those actions then the company would just replace him with someone who did.
In fact, under that philosophy I don't see why the same standard wouldn't apply for, say, pre-Civil War slaveowners. What those slaveowners did was legal, and maximized their profits. And if Slaveowner X didn't buy a particular slave, Slaveowner Y would have.
tl;dr - George Soros: "Lawful Evil is no worse than Lawful Good."
I mean, consider the founding fathers. We tease about it, yes, but haven't we forgiven tthem all for owning people, even Jefferson, who was maybe raping his slaves. No one says "we can't accept the nation built by those founders, they owned slaves."
Oh sweet. I missed that, sorry.
Okay, so far the two big economic scandals we're seeing:
1) He bailed out of a currency that was clearly going to tank.
2) He was convicted of insider trading nearly 20 years after the fact even though the French stock market regulatory agency said he didn't do anything wrong.
So he's probably not a saint, but no worse than any other really rich guy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
However the founding fathers aren't around to be repentant. Soros is still around, and yet apparently feels no guilt about his amoral financial dealings as shown in the book BubbaT quoted. Its also really odd that he openly opposes market fundamentalism whilst also using the efficency of the market ("someone else would do it") to cover his own amorality.
Thus while his philanthropy should be lauded, the altruism of his activism might be slightly suspect, as well as the basic problem of a single using large amounts of money to influence the political process in various countries.
I don't see what the problem is.
Consider the situation:
He can either
A: Short sterling and make a bunch of money then use some of that money to correct the problems of the market
B: Not short sterling and let someone else make a bunch of money and NOT use some of that money to correct the problems of the market.
Is the market going to get better if a fundamentalist exploits it then uses the money to promote market fundamentalism?
No? I consider pre-1860 slaveowning in America to be a pretty significant moral failing, regardless of how legal and profit-maximizing it was. I'm not a fan of companies in 3rd world countries that use sweatshop labor, or trade in blood diamonds, or wreck the environment, regardless of whether those actions are legal in the countries where they occur.
That goes for German companies who profited off Nazi policies, too. I don't accept "It was a good investment, and if we didn't do it someone else would have" as a morally justifiable reason for Deutsche Bank to help finance Auschwitz.
There's also another thing. Even if the slaveowners were completely unrepentant, even if they endorsed slavery, I would still expect them to acknowledge their personal role and responsibility in its existence/promotion. Soros is a player in the game, yet abdicates any responsibility for the outcome as if he were merely a spectator, a agency-less leaf being blown about on the winds of fate and chance.
As an aside, I don't think any of this has more than 0.0001% to do with why the right hates Soros. I'd hardly be surprised if many on the right shared Soros' views when it comes to business.
But do you refuse to benefit from their works?
I am not defending Soros' business behaviors. I will only go so far as to call him "part of the problem", rather than "the entire problem."
The idea that we should refuse his money because of how he got it, though, seems so odd to me, because it seems to only be applied when people also just so happen to disagree with the money going to that thing in the first place.
I don't know. I'd like to think I wouldn't take money made off the misery of others in the name of the ends justifying the means, but I've never really been in a position where I've had to make that choice. I have a feeling everyone is going to draw the line in a different place on that question.
There is a difference. You can't avoid interacting with someone that was produced by slave labor in this country. It's just a sad fact of the way things are. However, nobody has slaves in this country today in this country.
On the other hand, you don't have to accept money from crooked business moguls. You can simply say no. Just like you can also not buy goods made by child labor, if you so chose. You do have those choices.
Now if you accept it or not is up to you. But if you do accept it you need to deal with the issues, and it becomes a fair line of attack that you are associating with a crook, who is vicious, and really can't be for the little guy.
Which is what taking the cash proves.
Having worked in an organization that has to source funds where they come from is really important.
Point being, leave this country. Go to Liberia, or something.
Or is there some magic line in the sand that you are going to now refuse to point out where ti is (but insist that it exists) for five pages?
And I think, quite ironically, what you will see is people are only okay with the larger benefits (like your entire country being founded on it.)
It's easy to be a moral mouthpiece when you don't have to give up much. It's hypocritical to say that an organization can't take 750,000 bucks off of a guy, and then turn around and insist that it is too much of a hardship to avoid benefiting off of suffering yourself.
You can't go anywhere in the world where at some point there were not slaves.
Soros is a stinker. You don't have to take money from him. And you can get called out on it if you do. If you take money from the likes of Soros, you are taking money from a shady business man. And Soros has very much justified the hatred against him.
I don't have a choice in what happened in this country in the past, nor is there a current slave owner now. Would I take money from someone involved in the sex slave trade, nope. I can avoid that. And the Dems could avoid taking money from Soros, but, money talks.
You have failed to show how taking Soros' donations encourages him, though.
What about the myriad fo shady businessmen that the republicans take money from?
Goldblog on this controversy.
I don't know if that one has all the details so here's one when this broke.
Tossing out that the repubs are full of shit does not make the dems less full of shit.
As for jstreet. jstreet is full of people that hate Israel and is thankfully laughed off as a joke. They suck, and should be destroyed. That Soros donates to them only proves jstreet tends to the antisemetic, that they tried to hide it is further proof that they should be laughed into the ground.
Just when you thought you heard everything
... but why would it be morally wrong to bet against a currency? The Treasury was attempting to hold the value of sterling far higher than its actual worth as a currency; that action alone reduces the wealth of anyone with debts. Soros didn't trick the Treasury into doing so; John Major ordered the Treasury to spend billions to buy up the pounds then being unloaded onto the markets. Soros borrowed someone else's pounds, cheerfully sold it to the Treasury and other buyers, repaid his lender, and walked away with a massive profit: this is what we mean when we say "if Soros didn't do it, someone else would have"; the Treasury wanted to do itself an injury and Soros sold it the knife. Why would it be Soros' fault? Shouldn't it be the Treasury's fault? (or to be precise, that of the Conservative government?)
If the Bank of England had just devalued instead, the British taxpayer could have walked away with a massive profit, albeit at the cost of creditors. Instead it spent billions of reserves to defend the pound, then gave up and devalued anyway. o_O
"Zionist" is an incredibly loaded word that means something different depending on who is saying it. Soros is opposed to the "Israel is always right" type of Zionism which only serves to breed deeper contemtpt for Jews on the world stage. Soros hasn't come out as opposed to the Zionism of Herzl, though, which is the form of Zionism that J Street espouses.
And Ben-Ami didn't lie about Soros. I do admit that the wording was a bit unclear, but it was EXACTLY to avoid this sort of strawmanning that such a thing was done. Soros DID NOT provide the seed money for J Street. Soros IS NOT the largest donor to J Street.
How many J Street events have you been to? "Anecdotes olol", I know, but as a J Street U campus liaison (and one living just outside of DC, at that) I've met quite a few J Street staffers, including Ben-Ami and Luria. Not a ONE hated Israel and/or other Jews.
If you weren't banned I'd demand some kind of proof on your end right now. As you clearly can't respond, though, I'm just posting this to defend the character of the many innocent people you've just impugned, for the reference fo everyone else reading this thread.
Which wasn't really necessary, because it's nstf. He talked about beating the shit out of children. He's a troll, and if he isn't a troll he's a sociopath.
In fact, Glenn got so bad that the ADL came down on him (and remember, last time we saw them publicly, they were protesting againt the ground zero mosque...)
http://www.adl.org/PresRele/HolNa_52/5037_52.htm
Clearly Glenn Beck has no understanding of what the Holocaust was or who caused it. Maybe he should visit the Holocaust museum.