Posts Made By: Lee Spain

Always a beautiful place and a place that a D.C. visitor might not think to visit. Thanks for posting!

Why would any self-respecting building want to marry some whack-job chick who's an architecture geek? The building can clearly not consent to marriage.

However, adults can clearly consent to marriage. If two adults want to get married that should be their own personal business. The restriction that marriage should be between a man and a woman is based on religious doctrine. Atheism and agnosticism are valid religious philosophies and they don't have restrictions on who can get married. I'd guess that some open minded religions might let gay people get married.

Again, my official policy is one of compromise -- Gay marriage is o.k. Bathroom buggery is punishable by death.

People don't realize what damage H1B addiction is doing to the economy. Yes, they can program or run a database or administer an application. However, many are doing jobs that could and should be done by Americans.

In living in a community filled with H1B's, I can see that they buy VERY little. They live in apartments with little inside, they scrounge furniture from the trash area, they cook at home, they share cars, or take cabs. They do not come from a materialistic culture. They don't even buy stuff from the vending machines at work. They save their money so that they can live well when the get back home. Where an American employee would support a family, buy a car, build a home, and be an active consumer in our economy, the H1B employee will generally do much of their spending back in their home country.

Since they have no material possessions to tie them down, they can move from job to job and gain experience across a broad industry segment. When H1B's leave, they will also take expertise on how American companies do business and on how their computer systems work. Ultimately, this will give foreign companies an edge in developing software. In many cases, they join "offshore" teams and perform American jobs from locations overseas.

Thanks to the H1B program, Americans who earn rigorous A+ and MCSE certifications are lucky to get work as Best Buy Geek Squad members for about $10 an hour. Prior to the H1B program, such certificates could have helped someone get in the door of an IT department and enter the middle class earning $40K to $50K.

Now, none of this stuff is the fault of the individual H1B employee. They are generally good, intelligent, people of good moral character. However, they are undercutting the American middle class in a major way.

The "safety net" is actually the anti-murder, anti-robbery, and anti-larceny barrier. You can take down the safety net and let people starve. However, if you think drug addicts are bad, just imagine what food addicts will do . . .

I think conservative Christian voters are concerns about Romney's church and that was a major factor in Newt's South Carolina showing. Interviews with some voters indicated that they wanted someone to stand up for their faith.

That being said - I think it is reprehensible to attack Romney on the basis of his religious faith. I have noticed that many articles on Romney have comments by readers that attack the Mormon faith. The volume of these comments may well be indicative of a Lee Atwater-style dirty trick.

Hmmm...I guess this is supposed to underscore a divide between white collar and blue collar America. I scored between 9 and 12. I go shooting, but not hunting. I'd go fishing, but my wife doesn't have the patience for it so it's not high on my list of things to do. I've worked in a warehouse and making blueprints in a factory, but I didn't count that as a factory floor. I gave myself credit for naming the NASCAR dude, but he ain't one of my favorites. I've hung out with smokers in the past, but now smoke hurts my eyes too much and I don't like having smelly clothes. I used to ride Greyhound all the time as a high school and college kid. You couldn't pay me to ride Greyhound now. When I lived in St. Louis, most of my wife's family were factory workers. It wasn't any big deal. I think this dude is just trying to sell books.

I think it's kind of disingenuous to characterize the "upper-class" as living within a bubble from mainstream America. It's just as important for "lower-class" people to expose themselves and their kids to the finer things from time to time--a symphony, a play or broadway show, an art museum, a plantation tour, an Ivy League campus, etc.

Maybe it's a Virginia thing? I think most men from Virginia aspire to emulate at least some of the better aspects of the state's most esteemed gentlemen--Patrick Henry, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee, etc. The only thing I regret NOT doing as a kid is working in a tobacco field for a day or two.

There is no arguing with supply and demand. When you take minimum wage as a single element in the economic equation, there is no argument. If you lower wages, employers can afford to hire more people. But, let's pull on the thread a little . . .

However, for a minimum wage worker to have a chance to make a realistic living on that wage, a lot of other regulations must go. Let's eliminate airbags, side-impact protection, fire codes, electrical codes, building codes, health regulations, food inspections, drug regulations, etc. We don't need sewers or clean water. They cost too much for minimum wage workers to afford. They also can't afford cars. Instead, let's set aside one lane on all major thoroughfares for mopeds or bicycles. Let's lower bus fares to 25 cents and install ladders on subway trains so that poor people can pay a dime and ride on the roof. Let's lift occupancy restrictions on all dwellings so that minimum wage workers can live in cages like they do here in Hong Kong:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/10/28/cage.homes/index.html

Of course, when wages are allowed to fall that low, no one will take the jobs because they will find that a combination of crime and welfare pay more. So, we'll need to eliminate all social welfare programs. Of course, we'll have to crack down on crime and make that unacceptable--floggings, hangings, and stocks on the public square--should be a sufficient deterrent. If people are faced with starvation or draconian punishment for criminal activity, they can work for next to nothing and a handful of rice per day.

Ultimately, when you pull on the thread, the advanced civilization that we are trying to build comes unraveled in a race to the bottom. As Americans we all must collectively face the essential problem posed by the invisible hand of the marketplace in economies that include the third world. If we lower wages and living standards, we can be competitive. All we have to accept the living conditions of a third world country.

I suspect that companies will have no problems hiring teens and young people if we make illegal aliens scarce. Tallahassee didn't have many illegals (not much building and not much agriculture to attract them) and young people had plenty of low wage jobs.

Sounds like a good time for Israel to bomb Iran, spike the price of oil, and tank the whole thing . . .

We should NEVER have paid Japanese-Americans for being interned for the duration of World War 2. I know of at least one other minority group that needs to be rounded up and sent to a reservation or something . . . :S

Oh sure! But, it's ok for the "Sleeping with the Devil" thread to go on for days and days. Dadgum Satanists!