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I didn't start an argument with you, alansmith. You quoted my comments in this discussion and the first thing out of your mouth was an insult that I didn't understand capitalism. That's what started the discussion between us, and everyone reading this has the ability to page back and look for themselves as to who started this "silly argument" despite your contention to the contrary.
You closed with a stream of insults: me still not understanding capitalism, or even what a market is!, that I pretend to be well read, but I don't even understand what I read.
If anyone's got something on their shoulder, or something to prove about an e-penis or whatever, it's clearly coming through in your posts. I haven't once personally insulted you, instead I've sat here and patiently fielded your inaccurate assumptions and allegations about how the "real world" works and what capitalism is or what it ought to do. I even sat here and typed out an entire chapter of a book to support my position, which you casually disregarded as anti-US commentary.
The only thing you took from all of what I've written is an anti-American bashing campaign, which has to make rational people reading this dialog wonder just where the hell you pulled that from. Perhaps you thought that all along and you've just been waiting to lay it out there. It's a non-sequitor to what I wrote, especially since I never once limited my analysis to US capitalism/capitalists; but there it is, wafting like a lingering fart for everyone in the room to smell.
The closest I guess I came to speaking negatively about US in particular was when I said that our culture emphasizes greed but that in general our attitudes about greed are that it's an undesirable trait. How that goes against America is beyond me, especially since you argued back that greed is a necessary ingredient for capitalism, and the US is the closest thing to pure capitalism, and that I'm trying to redefine greed as something negatve (?!).
But much of what you wrote has been beyond me, and I now understand why: evidently I have an inability to understand the things that I read and write. I'm functionally illiterate. Lucky for me, someone on the internet was able to straighten me out about the real world.
smooth is anti-america because smooth doesn't understand capitalism because smooth said that capitalists think things about human nature that don't seem to mesh with how they think their economy works: to wit, people are greedy and lazy but they are driven to maximize their production by invisible market forces
that's a pretty good way to end a discussion, yeah, I agree. When insults didn't work, and I didnt kowtow to your definitions and framing of the discussion, you decided to boldly just tell me to quit talking....way to go, dude.
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