Nashville Republican & Democratic convention 2024!???

[smeagolsfree]

All discussion for the two conventions here please.

[Armacing]

Vote Libertarian in 2024!! 

[Nashvillain]

2 hours ago, Armacing said:

Vote Libertarian in 2024!! 

No

[Argo]

It's good the State of Tennessee is breaking out the belt on the Nashville council. They have their hands out to the state all day every day for incentives etc. If they want to play liberal child politics then they should pay the price. The money given to Nashville should be greatly reduced and given to Knoxville and northeast Tennessee. 

What other conventions will the liberal children sabotage because their miserable existences revolve around nothing but politics? It will happen again to other conventions the nimrods don't like. The state is right to use the belt and stop this before it starts.

 

Edited July 10, 2022 by Argo

[Nashvillain]

^ This is the edited version? Yeesh. 

[samsonh]

53 minutes ago, Argo said:

It's good the State of Tennessee is breaking out the belt on the Nashville council. They have their hands out to the state all day every day for incentives etc. If they want to play liberal child politics then they should pay the price. The money given to Nashville should be greatly reduced and given to Knoxville and northeast Tennessee. 

What other conventions will the liberal children sabotage because their miserable existences revolve around nothing but politics? It will happen again to other conventions the nimrods don't like. The state is right to use the belt and stop this before it starts.

 

Strangely emotional post. Perhaps Nashville should start keeping more of our tax revenue instead of supporting the rural counties.  Just a thought. 

[Armacing]

On 7/10/2022 at 9:23 AM, samsonh said:

Strangely emotional post. Perhaps Nashville should start keeping more of our tax revenue instead of supporting the rural counties.  Just a thought. 

It's interesting how common the belief is that Nashville/Davidson is supporting the surrounding counties when the opposite is clearly true.  All of the manufacturing occurs in the surrounding counties, Davidson has very little manufacturing left.  And remind me again where all of the corporate executives live... is it Davidson county?  Nope - Williamson.  Without Williamson county Davidson county would be a shell of its present form. 

If Davidson county included all surrounding counties and they were all under the jurisdiction of the Metro Nashville government, Nashville would be an economically declining failed city like Buffalo or Detroit or Cleveland.  And it's not just the counties immediately surrounding Davidson that support Davidson.  The rest of the state has the critical mass of "Red" voters to overpower the "Blue" voters in Davidson to prevent it from enacting anti-business legislation.   So the rural counties continuously save Davidson from itself by preventing Davidson from destroying the tax revenue sources you seem to value so much.

[samsonh]

1 hour ago, Armacing said:

It's interesting how common the belief is that Nashville/Davidson is supporting the surrounding counties when the opposite is clearly true.  All of the manufacturing occurs in the surrounding counties, Davidson has very little manufacturing left.  And remind me again where all of the corporate executives live... is it Davidson county?  Nope - Williamson.  Without Williamson county Davidson county would be a shell of its present form. 

If Davidson county included all surrounding counties and they were all under the jurisdiction of the Metro Nashville government, Nashville would be an economically declining failed city like Buffalo or Detroit or Cleveland.  And it's not just the counties immediately surrounding Davidson that support Davidson.  The rest of the state has the critical mass of "Red" voters to overpower the "Blue" voters in Davidson to prevent it from enacting anti-business legislation.   So the rural counties continuously save Davidson from itself by preventing Davidson from destroying the tax revenue sources you seem to value so much.

Unfortunately for you we can actually look at the raw numbers provided by the state to see where the money is coming from. I am not sure why you bring up manufacturing, manufacturing is not driving the middle TN economy by any means. In fact, the new manufacturing plants are going to East and West TN.  Then you bring up Williamson County. Do you think Williamson County has all the executives? Do you not realize the wealthy areas of Davidson (Forest Hills, Belle Meade, Tyne Blvd, West Meade) have lots of corporate executives? 

 

Which pieces of legislation have the rural counties saved Davidson from? You said continuously so I would like three if possible, should be easy. 

 

Feel free to browse the raw data: https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/revenue/documents/pubs/2022/Coll202205.pdf

 

 

 

 

[Armacing]

3 hours ago, samsonh said:

Unfortunately for you we can actually look at the raw numbers provided by the state to see where the money is coming from. I am not sure why you bring up manufacturing, manufacturing is not driving the middle TN economy by any means. In fact, the new manufacturing plants are going to East and West TN.  Then you bring up Williamson County. Do you think Williamson County has all the executives? Do you not realize the wealthy areas of Davidson (Forest Hills, Belle Meade, Tyne Blvd, West Meade) have lots of corporate executives? 

Which pieces of legislation have the rural counties saved Davidson from? You said continuously so I would like three if possible, should be easy. 

Davidson county has more population, so it's natural more tax revenue comes from there.  On a per-capita basis Williamson county and Davidson county are practically equal.  And Sevier county surpasses both of them by a long-shot. 

The question is what is enabling business to exist in Davidson county?  What's the name of that stadium downtown?  Nissan?  Are there any Nissan factories or headquarters in Davidson county?  Nope... I wonder where they could be?

What's the name of that arena downtown? Bridgestone?  Why is Bridgestone here and not in Akron Ohio?  Because of the Bridgestone manufacturing that is... you guessed it... outside of Davidson county in Middle Tennessee.  And because there is no income tax here.

How many of those recent tech company announcements would have happened in TN if we had a state income tax?  None, I say.  And you can thank the rural counties for that because Davidson county residents (and Shelby) were the most pro-income tax back in the early 2000's during that whole fiasco.

More recently:  State blocked the AMP BRT project.  State blocked Nashville affordable housing regulations.  State overrode Nashville authority on COVID restrictions.  Those are all small examples, but the biggest impacts are how the "Red" critical mass helps keep taxes low and  organized labor at a minimum, which keeps new manufacturing moving to TN.  Manufacturing may not mean much to you, but it's a primary source of well-paid middle class jobs in a lot of counties, especially in the rural counties.  And unlike tourism that is "non-essential" and prone to collapse during an economic downturn, manufacturing is a lot more reliable and pays much better wages for full time work with benefits.

[Bos2Nash]

On 7/9/2022 at 3:14 PM, Armacing said:

Vote Libertarian in 2024!! 

I have in the past. I supported Gary Johnson and Bill Weld in their bid. I primarily supported them in an effort to get a third "major" party into the rotation. Unfortunately, some of their policies such as isolationism is a pretty big red flag. Also this sense of blowing everything up in the name of individual freedoms is a bit laughable. Blowing some things up is reasonable like department of education, war on drugs, the free market (to a certain extent) sure, but militarily turning your back on the world - not so much. Jo Jorgenson was on the ballot here in TN during the last election, but only as an independent, so it would've literally been wasting a vote (just like all those Kanye voters). She never gained the momentum that the Johnson/Weld ticket generated and even though she wasn't as erratic as Johnson was at times I didn't think she had the gusto.

22 hours ago, Armacing said:

It's interesting how common the belief is that Nashville/Davidson is supporting the surrounding counties when the opposite is clearly true.  All of the manufacturing occurs in the surrounding counties, Davidson has very little manufacturing left.  And remind me again where all of the corporate executives live... is it Davidson county?  Nope - Williamson.  Without Williamson county Davidson county would be a shell of its present form. 

If Davidson county included all surrounding counties and they were all under the jurisdiction of the Metro Nashville government, Nashville would be an economically declining failed city like Buffalo or Detroit or Cleveland.  And it's not just the counties immediately surrounding Davidson that support Davidson.  The rest of the state has the critical mass of "Red" voters to overpower the "Blue" voters in Davidson to prevent it from enacting anti-business legislation.   So the rural counties continuously save Davidson from itself by preventing Davidson from destroying the tax revenue sources you seem to value so much.

Urban area subsidize subsidize suburban/rural areas. That is just basic economics. Because of the sheer density of urban areas, the tax revenue from those areas gets spread out to support not only the high generating urban areas, but the non-generating suburban/rural areas. The urban areas are also a lot more complex. Urban areas typically rely on additional taxes that the suburban/rural folks typically don't want in order to fund things such as schools, mass transit, first responders. All things that Nashville is lacking in right now. Severely lacking! The biggest example of the urban subsidization is the infrastructure. Water lines, roads are two perfect examples that go to show how the urban machine actually gives life to the suburban/rural. Sometimes I wonder why we have so many state roads in TN and probably because places like Memphis/Nashville/Knoxville bring in tax revenue so the state can then build a road network throughout the state into these rural communities that don't generate the tax revenue to build themselves. Now I am not saying this is completely a bad thing. By the state building these roads, it unlocks properties that otherwise would not be reachable. This creates sprawl, but also creates land that is more affordable. Thus giving people the choice to not live in the city, but clearly as we see by the traffic in and out of the city on a daily basis, the city is still where a large majority of jobs are.

Then you talk about "red" vs. "blue" and how the "red" is saving Nashville from itself? The "red" has put caps on the amount of money the "blue" city can collect from real estate taxes, so in essence while places like East Nashville, North Nashville, Wedgewood Houston are gentrifying and bringing in people and tax revenue, the tax burden of folks in Green Hills and Bellmeade is shrinking because Metro is working to balance the tax scale. Because that is a smart economic choice! Rather than benefiting exponentially from the massive amount of growth in the city, the state has hamstrung the finances of Metro out of sheer pettiness.

The "blue" voters are not looking to self-destruct or create an anti-business environment, but rather now begin to cultivate what we have built and add things to the built environment that add equity and inclusion into it. Equity and Inclusion from the standpoint of income class, education level, racial and gender equality, things that don't always translate in the economic world, but is imperative to the overall vibrancy of cities. Unfortunately, some folks are blind to items such as that because the mentality of "personal responsibility" is such an overwhelming thing that "my hard earned money shouldn't go to other people". The way you are talking about Davidson County and their "anti-business" mentality is laughable. Other than the income tax item (which I do enjoy) the State has shot down things such as inclusionary zoning as an incentive for developers. It wasn't even a mandate for affordable housing. It was a damn incentive to get the large corporations who are coming into the city and looking to build tall to gain extra buildable area and all they have to do is provide affordable units in their development. No mandate at all, but the State said "no, we believe that incentivizing developers with a human benefit to gain them a financial benefit is demonstratively damaging to our wonderful economic system".

The biggest issue is both sides refuse to look across the aisle and understand both sides have their merits. Both sides also have an incredible amount of pettiness. This is why I do think we need a third party, but one has not come along that has sensible, middle of the road solutions. The vast majority of our country is in the suburban/rural category from a land perspective, but the vast majority of our population lives in the urban category. There is a balancing act that neither side is wanting to acknowledge. 

[samsonh]

19 hours ago, Armacing said:

Davidson county has more population, so it's natural more tax revenue comes from there.  On a per-capita basis Williamson county and Davidson county are practically equal.  And Sevier county surpasses both of them by a long-shot. 

The question is what is enabling business to exist in Davidson county?  What's the name of that stadium downtown?  Nissan?  Are there any Nissan factories or headquarters in Davidson county?  Nope... I wonder where they could be?

What's the name of that arena downtown? Bridgestone?  Why is Bridgestone here and not in Akron Ohio?  Because of the Bridgestone manufacturing that is... you guessed it... outside of Davidson county in Middle Tennessee.  And because there is no income tax here.

How many of those recent tech company announcements would have happened in TN if we had a state income tax?  None, I say.  And you can thank the rural counties for that because Davidson county residents (and Shelby) were the most pro-income tax back in the early 2000's during that whole fiasco.

More recently:  State blocked the AMP BRT project.  State blocked Nashville affordable housing regulations.  State overrode Nashville authority on COVID restrictions.  Those are all small examples, but the biggest impacts are how the "Red" critical mass helps keep taxes low and  organized labor at a minimum, which keeps new manufacturing moving to TN.  Manufacturing may not mean much to you, but it's a primary source of well-paid middle class jobs in a lot of counties, especially in the rural counties.  And unlike tourism that is "non-essential" and prone to collapse during an economic downturn, manufacturing is a lot more reliable and pays much better wages for full time work with benefits.

 

Manufacturing is outside Davidson County because our real estate is more expensive. Look at where the big manufacturing was originally placed: big plots of land away from town near the interstate. Also in areas that could draw workers from the poor outlying counties easily. Manufacturing would not be the highest and best use of a big flat piece of thousands of acres in Davidson County. You should know this. 

 

Davidson County produces 25% more sales tax revenue for the state PER CAPITA than the wealthiest county in the state, Williamson. That is more than just a rounding error. Its a different ballpark. 

 

The state blocking affordable housing and mass transit are business friendly? You will need to explain that one to me. As to the covid restrictions: TN has the fifth has Covid death rate per capita. So bragging about what the state has done there seems...not good. Keeping organized labor to a minimum is good? These manufacturing jobs you are bragging about are moving here because they can pay less and offer fewer benefits because we are a POOR state. We are an uneducated state. We are an unhealthy state. We should be striving for better. 

 

[Armacing]

I got my population statistics from this site:

https://tnsdc.utk.edu/2021/08/12/2020-population-of-tennessee-counties-and-incorporated-areas/

Your sales tax data on page 15 showed the following for 2022 YTD State and Local tax revenue:

Davidson = $96,307,311 ÷ 715,884 people = $134.53 per capita

Williamson = $32,286,801 ÷ 247,726 people = $130.33 per capita

That's only a difference of $4.20 per capita, meaning Davison county per-capita tax revenue is only 3% higher than Williamson.  Where are you getting 25%?

3 hours ago, samsonh said:

The state blocking affordable housing and mass transit are business friendly? 

Not only is it business friendly, it's good for every single citizen.  The state made sure housing would be *available* because regulating the price of housing below the market price is certain to create a housing shortage.  Have you even heard of Venezuela?  Government owned/run public transit is a boondoggle that destroys wealth by sinking billions into a capital asset that generates zero profit and actually loses money every year.  By preventing that the state allowed capital to remain deployed in the economy for profitable business ventures.  That's a huge economic win.

3 hours ago, samsonh said:

As to the covid restrictions: TN has the fifth has Covid death rate per capita. So bragging about what the state has done there seems...not good.

So according to your standards China must have the highest quality of life in the world, right?   Their per-capita infection rate is far below even the best US state... 

3 hours ago, samsonh said:

Keeping organized labor to a minimum is good? 

Absolutely.  Organized labor in the US is more of a government institution because of the favorable legal treatment, and anything the state can do to limit the influence of federal regulators inside TN is a huge win for the state.  I have no problem with employees organizing on their own, but once the government gets involved then it introduces massive economic inefficiencies that lower the standard of living for everyone.

3 hours ago, samsonh said:

These manufacturing jobs you are bragging about are moving here because they can pay less and offer fewer benefits because we are a POOR state. 

Tell that to the people who were working part-time at Wal-Mart or Dollar General before Nissan/Volkswagon/GM/Hankook/Nokian/Wacker/Denso/LG opened their factories in counties other than Davidson.   I'm sure people in Michigan/Illinois/Ohio take great comfort in knowing they live in a RICH state every time their company chooses to close their factory and consolidate production into one facility that just happens to be located in Tennessee where there is no union.

3 hours ago, samsonh said:

We are an uneducated state. 

You might want to call Amazon and Oracle and let them know this right away then.

3 hours ago, samsonh said:

 We are an unhealthy state. 

Speak for yourself, I feel great!

3 hours ago, samsonh said:

We should be striving for better. 

How about *you* strive for better using your own money and leave the rest of us out of it?

[samsonh]

4 minutes ago, Armacing said:

I got my population statistics from this site:

https://tnsdc.utk.edu/2021/08/12/2020-population-of-tennessee-counties-and-incorporated-areas/

Your sales tax data on page 15 showed the following for 2022 YTD State and Local tax revenue:

Davidson = $96,307,311 ÷ 715,884 people = $134.53 per capita

Williamson = $32,286,801 ÷ 247,726 people = $130.33 per capita

That's only a difference of $4.20 per capita, meaning Davison county per-capita tax revenue is only 3% higher than Williamson.  Where are you getting 25%?

Not only is it business friendly, it's good for every single citizen.  The state made sure housing would be *available* because regulating the price of housing below the market price is certain to create a housing shortage.  Have you even heard of Venezuela?  Government owned/run public transit is a boondoggle that destroys wealth by sinking billions into a capital asset that generates zero profit and actually loses money every year.  By preventing that the state allowed capital to remain deployed in the economy for profitable business ventures.  That's a huge economic win.

So according to your standards China must have the highest quality of life in the world, right?   Their per-capita infection rate is far below even the best US state... 

Absolutely.  Organized labor in the US is more of a government institution because of the favorable legal treatment, and anything the state can do to limit the influence of federal regulators inside TN is a huge win for the state.  I have no problem with employees organizing on their own, but once the government gets involved then it introduces massive economic inefficiencies that lower the standard of living for everyone.

Tell that to the people who were working part-time at Wal-Mart or Dollar General before Nissan/Volkswagon/GM/Hankook/Nokian/Wacker/Denso/LG opened their factories in counties other than Davidson.   I'm sure people in Michigan/Illinois/Ohio take great comfort in knowing they live in a RICH state every time their company chooses to close their factory and consolidate production into one facility that just happens to be located in Tennessee where there is no union.

You might want to call Amazon and Oracle and let them know this right away then.

Speak for yourself, I feel great!

How about *you* strive for better using your own money and leave the rest of us out of it?

You are using incorrect data.  The vast majority of revenue in TN is sales tax generated, it was pretty clear I was referencing that. That data is page 13. 

 

You can deny reality or you can see things as they are. I would have thought a true libertarian would prefer local control and individual liberty, but I have noticed over and over again you prefer state level control.  Good luck with that. I am done with this

[Armacing]

1 hour ago, samsonh said:

You can deny reality or you can see things as they are. I would have thought a true libertarian would prefer local control and individual liberty, but I have noticed over and over again you prefer state level control.  Good luck with that. I am done with this

As a Libertarian I prefer freedom, and when the State needs to step in and protect that freedom from an oppressive county government, then I am 100% in favor of that.  Unlike you, I'm not done with this issue... I'm just getting started. 

[Armacing]

On 7/12/2022 at 8:24 AM, Bos2Nash said:

The urban areas are also a lot more complex. Urban areas typically rely on additional taxes that the suburban/rural folks typically don't want in order to fund things such as schools, mass transit, first responders. All things that Nashville is lacking in right now. Severely lacking! 

Suburban/Rural areas have schools and first responders.  And when it comes to mass transit, I find it interesting that Davidson county voters shut down that effort when they learned that they would carry the burden for funding the mass transit system alone.  When it became obvious that little to no State or Federal money (from outside Davidson county) would cover the cost, they balked.  This is not an insignificant fact, but rather an important event that provides valuable insight into the true nature of Public Transit.... Except in very large cities, public transit that is subsidized by state and federal funds is a money losing (wealth destroying) endeavor.  

Think about it this way:  Why not just build mass transit on credit and use the ticket fees to pay off the loan?  The answer is obvious:  There are not enough riders willing to pay high enough ticket fees to cover the cost of building the system.  But what does that mean?  It means that product (mass transit) is not valued as highly as other products that consumers are willing to spend their money on (voluntarily).  So why would you want to concentrate billions of investment into a capital asset that produces a product that consumers don't want?  Do some consumers want it?  Yes.  Do enough consumers want it to fund it through ticket sales revenue?  No.  So it doesn't get built - - at least not in free market America.   The Soviet Union and other centrally planned states had plenty of experience building massive wealth destroying industries and cities, but all it did was make them poorer. 

Would certain specific businesses benefit from mass transit in Nashville?  Possibly.  Would those same businesses buy tickets to give to their employees or purchase municipal bonds to fund the system?  No, obviously not, because if they would then some entity would have already taken advantage of that demand and created a mass transit system.  The very fact that government is left as the only entity capable of providing mass transit is proof that nobody wants to pay for it themselves, but a lot of people want to use the tax-collecting apparatus of government to force other people to pay for it.  Tennessee taxpayers decided they would rather wait in traffic for hours rather than pay for mass transit through taxes.  Thank goodness they have that choice rather than being forced to pay for a system they don't want.

[Bos2Nash]

1 hour ago, Armacing said:

Suburban/Rural areas have schools and first responders.  And when it comes to mass transit, I find it interesting that Davidson county voters shut down that effort when they learned that they would carry the burden for funding the mass transit system alone.  When it became obvious that little to no State or Federal money (from outside Davidson county) would cover the cost, they balked.  This is not an insignificant fact, but rather an important event that provides valuable insight into the true nature of Public Transit.... Except in very large cities, public transit that is subsidized by state and federal funds is a money losing (wealth destroying) endeavor.  

Think about it this way:  Why not just build mass transit on credit and use the ticket fees to pay off the loan?  The answer is obvious:  There are not enough riders willing to pay high enough ticket fees to cover the cost of building the system.  But what does that mean?  It means that product (mass transit) is not valued as highly as other products that consumers are willing to spend their money on (voluntarily).  So why would you want to concentrate billions of investment into a capital asset that produces a product that consumers don't want?  Do some consumers want it?  Yes.  Do enough consumers want it to fund it through ticket sales revenue?  No.  So it doesn't get built - - at least not in free market America.   The Soviet Union and other centrally planned states had plenty of experience building massive wealth destroying industries and cities, but all it did was make them poorer. 

Would certain specific businesses benefit from mass transit in Nashville?  Possibly.  Would those same businesses buy tickets to give to their employees or purchase municipal bonds to fund the system?  No, obviously not, because if they would then some entity would have already taken advantage of that demand and created a mass transit system.  The very fact that government is left as the only entity capable of providing mass transit is proof that nobody wants to pay for it themselves, but a lot of people want to use the tax-collecting apparatus of government to force other people to pay for it.  Tennessee taxpayers decided they would rather wait in traffic for hours rather than pay for mass transit through taxes.  Thank goodness they have that choice rather than being forced to pay for a system they don't want.

You're right they do, but what you fail to acknowledge is they have it on a much smaller scale so they are able to spend funds in a much more concentrated way. They don't have to spread the same type of general funds out to multiple large departments/agencies. Rural communities don't have the resources for services such as trash collection, sewer system (and maintenance), sometimes they don't have water systems (and maintenance), power supply. Everything relies on the private sector which the government then needs to regulate in order to maintain some of the affordability of the rural lifestyle. The urban environments generate enough revenue for the state so that the state can subsidize some of these utilities to keep the rural lifestyle affordable. Also, an urban environment does not want to rely on such private entities within the urban environment because then you have a tangle of different companies that don't communicate and don't work together like public agencies do. That isn't even going into the climate considerations of having one fleet of agencies versus 2, 5, 10 fleets of agencies.

The suburban communities are also continually reliant on urban environments for jobs as the economic life blood. 

When it comes to transportation as a whole, the urban environment continues to subsidize the roads going out into the suburban/rural communities because the State builds the roads from the urban tax revenue to make these rural/suburban communities realistic. 

When it comes to Mass Transit, the idea of it having to need to be a money maker is short sighted. Mass Transit is part of the overall social network I described previously that the urban environment is utilizing that the suburban/rural communities don't want/need/have a desire to consider (another reason their general funds go further). There is a slew of reasons as to why the transit referendum failed, and only part of it is because Davidson County would partly be solely responsible for funding. That funding came from a increase in sales tax (which definitely would hurt), but then would've increased the hotel tax (paid for by out-of-towners), car rental tax (paid for by out-of-towners). Davidson County proposed this funding mechanism because the "red" state that is "keeping the blue from self destructing and destroying our business environment" and would not provide transportation funding outside of highway/personal vehicle space. Then of course there was the whole misinformation campaign funded by folks that had vested interests in continuing the city's reliance on personal cars. The notion of a tunnel boring machine vibrating and undermining the foundations of Lower Broadway is so laughably false that it makes one sad to who is financially in charge of those places. Not to mention even if the referendum passed, the State most likely would've blocked it because it would require the state to give up personal vehicle space on roads that they expanded with tax payer dollars in order to allow the suburban/rural commuters the ability to drive there personal vehicles INTO THE CITY to generate more tax revenue that the state could use to build more state roads from the suburban/rural community into the city.

Amazing how misinformation works as the citizens clearly hate sitting in traffic as I have seen the posts on this forum complain incessantly about it. But you are okay with the "tax-collecting apparatus of government" forcing people to pay for expanding highways so that more people can choose (oh thank goodness for that choice) to buy a personal vehicle (and pay for the insurance and maintenance) and sit in traffic and then complain about such traffic. So it is okay one way, but not the other? Thank goodness the wills (and choice) of the suburban/rural populations take away the choice of making the city a bit more affordable by allowing people TO CHOOSE to not buy a personal vehicle (and pay for the insurance and maintenance) and ride a functioning mass transit system.  

What you fail to see is that Mass Transit is actually an equalizer for the city. You choose to only look at mass transit as a business that should be making a profit year over year. Mass Transit has economic benefits leaps and bounds – LEAPS AND BOUNDS – above that of hosting a "major" political convention, or a Super Bowl, or a World Cup, or any other event that the State is trying to force Metro to host under the guise of "Economic Benefit". 

[BnaBreaker]

On 7/10/2022 at 9:29 AM, Argo said:

It's good the State of Tennessee is breaking out the belt on the Nashville council. They have their hands out to the state all day every day for incentives etc. If they want to play liberal child politics then they should pay the price. The money given to Nashville should be greatly reduced and given to Knoxville and northeast Tennessee. 

What other conventions will the liberal children sabotage because their miserable existences revolve around nothing but politics? It will happen again to other conventions the nimrods don't like. The state is right to use the belt and stop this before it starts.

 

Bizarre that hysterical extremist hyperbole like this... complete with actual name-calling and blanket insults of entire groups of people... apparently flies just fine with the usual suspects who get all in a tizzy over generic criticisms of specific heavy handed politicians.

I wonder if you're a certain formerly banned member?  Hmmmm...

Edited July 13, 2022 by BnaBreaker

[BnaBreaker]

23 hours ago, Armacing said:

As a Libertarian I prefer freedom, and when the State needs to step in and protect that freedom from an oppressive county government, then I am 100% in favor of that.  Unlike you, I'm not done with this issue... I'm just getting started. 

I'm not so sure you're 100% in favor of "freedom" as much as you're just 100% in favor of whatever you're 100% in favor of.   A big state government strong arming and extorting a local government into holding a party for it's rowdy buddies that it has reservations about is essentially the very sort of thing a libertarian is supposed to vehemently oppose.  But it sounds to me like if you're into whatever it is big government is doing, then you just slap the convenient ole "freedom" label on it and call it libertarianism for the sake of consistency.  And if that is indeed the skewed version of so-called libertarianism you're trying to pedal here, then you can also count me out further discussion about it.  Now queue the 'anonymous' Armacing laughing response emoji.  

[samsonh]

3 hours ago, BnaBreaker said:

I'm not so sure you're 100% in favor of "freedom" as much as you're just 100% in favor of whatever you're 100% in favor of.   A big state government strong arming and extorting a local government into holding a party for it's rowdy buddies that it has reservations about is essentially the very sort of thing a libertarian is supposed to vehemently oppose.  But it sounds to me like if you're into whatever it is big government is doing, then you just slap the convenient ole "freedom" label on it and call it libertarianism for the sake of consistency.  And if that is indeed the skewed version of so-called libertarianism you're trying to pedal here, then you can also count me out further discussion about it.  Now queue the 'anonymous' Armacing laughing response emoji.  

Yeah armacing is not a libertarian. May have some of those beliefs, but he/she is definitely a statist, and a hardcore one at that. The dissonance is real.

[BnaBreaker]

^That certainly seems to be the case based on what he has posted here anyway.  I'm not a Libertarian myself, but I have immense respect for Libertarians who are actually consistent in their beliefs all the way across the board.  But Cafeteria Libertarianism seems to be, by far, the most prominent form of supposed "Libertarianism" amongst those I've met in my time.

On another note, many of the posts on this thread illustrate perfectly one of the reasons I can't stand this anonymous reaction stuff.  People can just hide behind their anonymous reactions without being expected to back up said reaction with an actual argument.  Don't have an actual counter but still want to express disapproval of a statement from 'the bad team' for reasons that have yet to come to you other than that they're from 'the bad team' and you're supposed to disapprove?  No problem, just click the anonymous laughter button and scamper away!  That'll show em!  Come on anonymously laughing friends, use your words!  If you're going to get involved in a discussion by giving an adverse reaction, the least you could do is take a little extra time to explain yourself, no?  That is all.  Good day. 

Edited July 15, 2022 by BnaBreaker

[Pdt2f]

5 hours ago, BnaBreaker said:

^That certainly seems to be the case based on what he has posted here anyway.  I'm not a Libertarian myself, but I have immense respect for Libertarians who are actually consistent in their beliefs all the way across the board.  But Cafeteria Libertarianism seems to be, by far, the most prominent form of supposed "Libertarianism" amongst those I've met in my time.

On another note, many of the posts on this thread illustrate perfectly one of the reasons I can't stand this anonymous reaction stuff.  People can just hide behind their anonymous reactions without being expected to back up said reaction with an actual argument.  Don't have an actual counter but still want to express disapproval of a statement from 'the bad team' for reasons that have yet to come to you other than that they're from 'the bad team' and you're supposed to disapprove?  No problem, just click the anonymous laughter button and scamper away!  That'll show em!  Come on anonymously laughing friends, use your words!  If you're going to get involved in a discussion by giving an adverse reaction, the least you could do is take a little extra time to explain yourself, no?  That is all.  Good day. 

If you download the Tapatalk it tells you who is reacting, even if it doesn’t tell you what specific reaction they’re putting in. So if you only have one reaction to your post it’s pretty easy to tell who put it in there. I’ve attached a picture so you can see the UI. 

[BnaBreaker]

18 minutes ago, Pdt2f said:

If you download the Tapatalk it tells you who is reacting, even if it doesn’t tell you what specific reaction they’re putting in. So if you only have one reaction to your post it’s pretty easy to tell who put it in there. I’ve attached a picture so you can see the UI. 

 

Thanks for the tip!  I didn't know that... however, just to clarify, it's not so much about me personally knowing who did what.  I just think that in general the added layer of anonymity makes things even less personal than a faceless internet message board already is, and in doing so nudges this more towards a social media style 'like' generator format rather than toward one that is more of a community that encourages actual conversations between adults (even if sometimes they're a bit uncomfortable for some... that's just the real world) in that people can just anonymously 'upvote' or 'downvote' certain comments, as it were, without ever actually having to be personally attached to that reaction.  That may just be the curmudgeon in me talking though. Sometimes he can be a bit rowdy.  In any case, thanks again for the information!

Edited July 16, 2022 by BnaBreaker

[Bos2Nash]

Interesting that Tapatalk shows you at least clicked a reaction, but the browser/website itself does not. I only use a browser to view the forum and agree 100% about the anonymous nature of the reactions. I really dislike that "update".

[Pdt2f]

21 hours ago, Bos2Nash said:

Interesting that Tapatalk shows you at least clicked a reaction, but the browser/website itself does not. I only use a browser to view the forum and agree 100% about the anonymous nature of the reactions. I really dislike that "update".

I liked that they removed the downvote option but everything else was kind of lame. And really the laughing one, if not used in an actual humorous situation, is a more douchy version of the downvote. 

[Armacing]

On 7/19/2022 at 9:09 AM, Pdt2f said:

I liked that they removed the downvote option but everything else was kind of lame. And really the laughing one, if not used in an actual humorous situation, is a more douchy version of the downvote. 

They should bring back the ability to see who is laughing, and also they should bring back the downvote with a name attached to it.  I'm also a huge believer in putting names next to reactions and also allowing negative reactions.