A common counterargument to the anti immigrant sentiment goes something like "we need someone to scrub our toilets for less than minimum wage, and immigrants are perfect for that". I even see some of that going on in this thread. Grosses me out to no end.

A better counterargument goes as follows. Immigrants do not only take jobs, they bring jobs as well. Every immigrant is another mouth to feed, in need of grocery stores, restaurants, legal representation, medical care, schooling, entertainment, and so on. They're the real job creators (as we all are). Being upset at immigrants for stealing jobs is exactly as stupid as being upset at people having children because the child will steal a job someday.

I really hate the "oh yeah, who will do the subhuman stuff then?" argument.

Self defense is not violence, it's intelligence.

I disagree. Firstly, if you want a masterclass on repentance, see Dan Harmon's apology. Made actual tangible steps to better himself, and devoted an entire podcast episode to apologizing, and spent about 0 seconds of that podcast feeling sorry for himself or lamenting that he got caught, or complaining about the financial effect it had on him. Plus, he doesn't deny the story of the woman he harrassed.

None of this is true for Louis CK. He says "everything they say is true", but then every chance he gets on his gigantic public platform, he repeats the blatant lie that he got consent. He didn't. In none of the women he harrassed's stories, he asks for consent. They deny that he asked for consent. All of them. And in his "apologies" he keeps repeating that he asked for consent. That's not an apology, that's just a lie.

His "apologies" are mostly made up of three parts. The first is a sneaky denial of the victim's stories, the second he spends some time complaining about how this makes him feel, and how it affected him financially, and that he's looking to get back on top of things and better his situation. And then the third is where he explains that there's nothing he can do to make the world tangibly a better place (like, idk, staying the fuck away, donating to a charity for victims of sexual assault, trying to do anything to fix the careers he destroyed), and that all he can really do are these vague platitudes that help no one like (I wish I were making this up) "shaking one hand at a time".

It's hard for me to think of a worse realistic public apology. Maybe "I didn't do it, but I'm sorry if you feel I hurt you" although that's already pretty close to what Louis CK is doing.

This is toxic positivity, which is toxic.

Anyway, I gave half of my last sandwich to a homeless guy yesterday. Then later it turned out he was a billionaire and he appointed me to be CEO of his factory. And you're an asshole if you dispute that story, somehow.

The guy with the nazi tattoo on his chest turned out to be a POS? What? This has to be some sort of mistake. This seems so uncharacteristic. Sometimes, reality truly is stranger than fiction.

Also a big fuck you to everyone that defended him. We told you so. We told you so, and you didn't listen. You people are so dense. Anyway, talk to you with the next obvious Obama/Letterman/Planter situation, where you'll make the exact same fucking mistake, because this time it really is different.

I didn’t cherry pick anything. I used the word as defined in the dictionary.

So you picked the exact version of the definition which supports you argument, in favor of the more appropriate definitions which are right there for you to see, which don't support your argument. But you're not cherry picking. If I ask you how that's not literally cherry picking will you respond with

Noun 2a cherry picking: the act of harvesting cherries from a cherry orchard

The rich has paid the politicians to make it this way, and I’m saying the reason it hasn’t gone the other way is because the rich & the politicians are butt buddies. I feel like that’s the core of my argument so I’m not sure how it doesn’t make sense.

Ah my bad. I completely agree with this take, this is entirely correct as far as I can tell. I thought you were saying that the owning class will flee if taxes go up, which is what my response is in reference to (it's also what this whole post is about).

Plus none of this is certain anyway, they might flee, they might deal with the taxes, they might just say fuck it and get away with it because if you have billions of dollars, what’s stopping you from hiring a private task force/protective service of your own…?

Nothing is ever certain, I don't have a crystal ball, pretty much anything at all can happen. But we can look at the past and see what the owning class ends up doing when confronted with higher taxes. When we look at the past, when we had higher tax rates, they didn't flee, so I don't consider that a very likely possibility.

Those two comments dangling at the bottom are like a modern day laugh track.

This argument would make sense if tax rates didn't use to be much higher. They didn't flee back then.

It'd be nice if you didn't cherry pick the exact one that fits your argument, when there's very obviously other definitions that support the person you're arguing with. So yes, I guess I do need that.

There's other definitions?

What does the "4a" part signify?