Burning_Ember

The Panama Papers have only started to get reported on a few days ago. The Prime Minister of Iceland resigned on day two. There is enough corruption out there so that as things keep getting leaked (not just the Panama Papers), it's going to end up forcing better behaviour in government. http://cphpost.dk/news/huge-icelandic-protest-in-copenhagen-today.html

This is why it was remarkably stupid to consider sending in any ground troops. If the mistakes of the last 15 years have resulted in destabilizing the middle east, it's a good idea to not destabilize the world.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/08/how-drones-create-more-terrorists/278743/ See article. When more terrorists get recruited that means they can kill more people. Radicalization doesn't happen in a vacuum. It arises as a result of power vacuums and other circumstances in whatever area/region. See the article. Or the Air Force whistleblowers who are going to be in the documentary, "Drone".

Not bombing civilians, thereby taking away recruiting tools for ISIS should be common sense. When you have a force that large, making sure you don't hand them propaganda to strengthen them, when a ground invasion would be, at best, a terrible idea, is pretty important.

Oh, come on, B.E. Canada has a strong economy that stands on it's own. I think ours affects yours up there but I don't think y'all will implode if we do. We export the majority of our of our oil, natural resources, lumber, and manufacturing goods to the U.S. If the U.S. economy implodes, we stop being able to export goods, our businesses crash, we lay off people, and then we can't buy consumer goods from the U.S, which in turn further hurts the States economy. In the same way, if China's economy tanked, that means that all those tech companies based in the U.S, which sell 40-50% of their goods in the asian market would tank. China and Canada are America's biggest trading partners.

We've sat up here in Canada and watched as deregulation and right wing economic policies caused bubble after bubble and hamstrung the American economy. If Trump gets elected, the American economy will get put through the meat grinder. Please don't elect him. Canada and America have some of the most bilateral trade in the world, and the instant the American economy implodes, ours will go down with it.

People apply for jobs, for which they can get money. Ideally that job is one that is fair and gets them enough working hours and income. Just because someone would like to have a job that they feel pays fair/enough, I don't even pretend that's something that is reachable for everyone today.

Your argument then relies on the premise that every rational person in America has access to employment that they feels pays fairly and meets their needs. Prove it.

It's typical for where I live. Many places in America have far worse job prospects than anything presented in this thread, including what you've presented. You can repeat that all you like, shiloh. But nothing about accepting a job offer requires you to then "feel" that the wage you are getting for that work is fair. The only thing within that argument that is correct... Is that it is that it is implied when you accept a job is that you are agreeing to get paid that amount, not that you think that it is fair. You would otherwise be saying someone is incapable of getting paid a wage and feeling that it is unfair.

What a wonderful labour market you must live in. Here living costs are very inflated. An apartment starts at $1,250, your other base living costs for transportation ($105) below average utilities + internet ($300) basic groceries ($150) a phone ($45) brings your monthly total expenses to $1,800, which is about the lowest people around here spend getting a balanced but very marginal set of groceries. Assuming you take public transit entirely and have no car and spend no money on anything else. Let's be generous and assume that someone is making $3/hr above the minumum wage at $13.20 an hour, gets 8 hours of paid work a day, 5 days a week, and is in good health and takes zero sick days. You bring in about $2,000-$2,050 after taxes, which is just under the poverty line. In reality, your job likely earns you $12/hr, and you average 24 hours a weeks for work. which is about $1,150 a month. Whoops. That's well below the poverty line. If you split rent with another person your monthly budget might just break even. Want a better job? Good luck! That job at the coffee shop at $12 an hour you you got? You beat out not only 25 people at your skill level, but five other applicants who had six years of post secondary and six years work in way higher position they just got laid off from. Probably because you know a guy who knows the general manager. After seven years of working very hard when the economy wasn't in a total nosedive here, and being very lucky with how I'm able to sell my product(s) within the visual arts industry, I'm not in that position. But anybody who loses their job, or anyone who doesn't already have a very solid position locked up is. Which "pothole countries" are those, exactly? People also move to Canada, Australia, France, The UK, Germany, Japan, Brazil, Eastern Europe, Russia, Jordan, Turkey, Dubai... Migrant labour isn't something that just happens in America.

therelittleflower has been addressing minimum wage issues much better than I probably would be. shiloh, if you want social mobility in America, getting paid more makes a huge difference. Countries with less economic disparity, easier access to/cheaper education than the US have much greater social mobility, making it much easier to as it is said, "Fulfill the American Dream".

People are capable of more complicated thought processes than that.

The employer almost always sets the wage. It's completely possible to be paid $8/hr and not believe that is a fair wage to be paid. No part of agreeing to get paid a certain amount requires one to believe that it is a fair wage.

The idea that you think a wage is fair because you are getting paid that, is like saying you you think everything the government spends it's money on is fair, because you agreed to pay your taxes.

Well, then you aren't standing by what you said. If you say that if someone agrees to work for someone else they cannot accuse the employer of being unfair, and that you cannot set a dollar amount on what a fair wage is... But sweatshop rates and hours are too poor... Then it appears that yes, you can in fact have a legitimate complaint despite having agreed to a wage, and you can, in fact, set a dollar amount on what a fair wage would be.

You stated; 1) if a person agrees to work for someone else, at the wages being offered, that person has no legitimate grounds to accuse the employer of being unfair. If the employer pays what he and the employee agreed to, then the wage is fair. 2) "Fair wage" should not be tied to a particular dollar amount. 3) All the Bible requires is that employers pay what they agreed to pay and not change the rules once the work has been done. That is honest and fair. 4) If someone doesn't like what they're getting paid, they can get up off their butt and find another job that pays more, otherwise stop complaining and just do their job. 5) Many of these fair wage people only look at this from the vantage point of the burger flippers who are whining that they aren't getting paid enough. A fair wage has to be understood in terms of the limited pool of $$$ that an employer has for payroll. 6) Fair wages, as defined by liberals isn't the same concept as we see in Scripture. "A worker is worthy of his hire," Jesus said. That is the merit system. You do less you are worth less and get paid less (or fired). You do more, you are worth more and get paid more. That's the Bible way, not the liberal, loony leftist way. Do you stand by this or not?

Re-read the bolded parts of your post. It's very relevant. If that's your position you have to be willing to apply it everywhere. Not just America. A fair wage is a living wage. My friends who apply for jobs for months on end and can barely get part time at just above minimum wage survive off bulk dried beans and don't really have money for anything else, let alone being able to save for education, or afford losing their job at all. They're one paycheck away from being homeless.

At the Foxconn plants in China which make a great deal of cellphone parts, you get paid $1.74 an our. 18 workers have killed themselves at that plant, and the company installed nets to prevent people from jumping rather than take serious measures to improve working conditions. Working conditions could include working 24 hours straight. I don't think that if someone agrees to that it's still a "fair wage". If working conditions are so awful that 9 people kill themselves in the span of 3 months at the Foxconn plants, that is barbaric.

You can't deport white supremacist groups. They are in America. Some are terrorists. That's gotta be handled at some point, but many view themselves as Christian, or their ideology will be their religion. It is a cultural change in teaching people to respect the human beings they live with that is a long, tiresome thing that needs to happen. Racism and hatred is that poison and it's something people have to take a look at and address not just with people they meet, but within ourselves. That means you and me as well. Nobody is perfect. Forgiveness is great, justice is great, but that will not stop the next shooting from happening.

If there was just ONE cell in America that was radicalizing people for extremist groups like IS to kill Americans, what would you do? There are over 800 hate groups in America, and when we talk about white supremacist groups... Some of those ARE terrorist organizations. They engage in the drug trade, their long term goals are to segregate murder and kill... I don't see how this is a thing where some terrorist groups you should treat with baby gloves and try turn them towards Jesus, and others you wouldn't tolerate for a second in the country.

Forgiveness is awesome I agree. But it does NOT do anything about white supremacist groups that radicalize people to commit terrorist acts. There are over 800 hate groups in America of one sort or another that engage in stuff like that. I'll believe that your position about Jesus and forgiveness being the solution to all we face is the solution when I see you do that for other terrorist groups like IS.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/us/tally-of-attacks-in-us-challenges-perceptions-of-top-terror-threat.html?_r=0 TWICE as many people have been killed by homegrown extremists, as opposed to islamic extremists since 9/11. White supremacists have tried to kill the President (Obama) I imagine they are responsible for burning down the Church in North Carolina that happened on the 18th, it is a SERIOUS problem where people die and have their lives put in jeaporday and I believe it should be treated more seriously than how you have just addressed this. The problem is this isn't the Islamic State, it's a cultural shift that needs to take place within America, and that means everyone has to put that effort forward towards understanding and empathy, abandoning and abolishing racism and hatred instead of sitting idly by while it happens. I never said it wasn't a serious problem, but neither is the epidemic that liberals like you try to paint it out to be. Racism is in every country and you will never get rid of it. and it is not a cultural problem, but a spiritual problem that only biblical Christianity has the answer to. The only person who can solve the race problem is Jesus. The world is helpless in this regard. I could not care less what some liberal rag like the NY Slimes has to say. Racism in the US is not even close to infecting the majority of people in the US. Whites made Oprah the richest woman in the US. Whites have made black athletes some of the highest paid in all fields of sports. Many of the highest paid athletes in the US are black. More whites died in 2014 than were born, due in part to the prevalence of inter-racial marriage. The whites in this country elected a black president twice. So you can blather on and on about the problem of race, but it is not as bad as people like you falsely trump it up to be. I would also point out that since Roof attacked bible believing Christians, you got a first hand look at how real Christians answer racism. You saw forgiveness. In Charleston, we did not have a bunch rioters foaming at the mouth and burning down half a city block. We did not have calls for anyone's death, not even the death of gunman. What you saw is what we should have seen in Ferguson and Baltimore instead of the riots and so-called "protests." What you saw in Charleston (and I know this bugs you) is whites and blacks linking arms and praying and worshiping God and praying for each other in churches in Charlestons. What you saw was REAL racial unity in that southern town. Liberals, to their dismay, can't turn Charleston into a hate fest. They didn't get to paint Charleston as a racist "white supremacist" city. They can't turn Charleston into something ugly. The liberals didn't get to hold up Dylann Roof as the typical white man of Charleston. Charleston is a good demonstration as to why the Left is so dangerous, divisive, racist and morally bankrupt. The irony is that it is liberals who are the racists. If it's a serious problem what do you want to DO about it? I'm looking for your direct, active solution. This shooter was radicalized by hate groups in a way not really much different than the way IS radicalizes people. This was a terrorist attack that killed more people than the boston marathon bombing. What are you going to do about it? What should others actively do? The obvious solution is to teach people empathy, forgiveness, and understanding, and to confront discriminatory and racist ideologies where they exist in America, not to throw ones hands up in the air and say that racism will always exist.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/us/tally-of-attacks-in-us-challenges-perceptions-of-top-terror-threat.html?_r=0 TWICE as many people have been killed by homegrown extremists, as opposed to islamic extremists since 9/11. White supremacists have tried to kill the President (Obama) I imagine they are responsible for burning down the Church in North Carolina that happened on the 18th, it is a SERIOUS problem where people die and have their lives put in jeaporday and I believe it should be treated more seriously than how you have just addressed this. The problem is this isn't the Islamic State, it's a cultural shift that needs to take place within America, and that means everyone has to put that effort forward towards understanding and empathy, abandoning and abolishing racism and hatred instead of sitting idly by while it happens.

Those bits from the articles are facts. What I'm saying is events like these don't happen in a vacuum. If he grew up in an environment where racism and white supremacy was denounced as abhorrent and wrong, then I don't think he would've walked into a black church to commit an act of terrorism with a stated goal of trying to start a race war. You don't know what type of environment he grew up in, B.E. Don't be like the 'talking heads' on t.v. and speculate, ad nauseum, before any facts are in. They do that about EVERYTHING. This guy is first and foremost just plain EVIL. http://time.com/3930993/dylann-roof-council-of-conservative-citizens-charleston/ I'm not wrong. http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article25408597.html In North Carolina, another Church with mostly black people in the congregation was burned down. These might be separate people doing these things, but it stems from the same poisonous root, hatred and racism.

Your opinion as to how the first amendment applies is not evidence of some sort of established case law. There is evidence that has been presented that states that employers also have rights, and their right to hire, fire, or switch someones position means they can (in some states) fire you simply for going to a bar after work. I might add that you are no more or less fallible than the courts, with the exception that the supreme court justices have a great deal of experience dealing in law.