Kroney

Manly, empire-building, alcoholic Anglo-Saxons, thank you very much. And the Welsh.

So what you're saying here is that you get turned on by cartoons. Well good for you for being honest. The first stage of curing a problem is admitting you have one. I'm proud of you. Now seek professional help, you wonderful, beautiful pervert.

That makes over half the currently decided population of Scotland interlopers and puts the population of Hoondig-defined "true" Scots at a third of the population of London. Just for context, you understand.

Gromnir needs to use correct English, as well as quote properly. Then he might contribute in a constructive fashion. Half his posts are illegible as they are right now. He seems to be too caught up in his forum persona though. I'm not sure if that's sadder than a troll or not. There's something quite pleasing about the fact that Gromnir's persona is still winding people up sixteen years on. Makes me feel young.

it doesn't matter. Gromnir and others has suggested that real estate ownership is a factor in determining millionaire status. gifted rebutts by saying that one o' his linked articles says the money is "wall street-generated" which is meaningless in and of itself, but again, he were rebutting gorgon and others who said that real estate ownership were a factor. he has gone to a bad place. HA! Good Fun! I think he's just trying to say that the link he posted doesn't factor in property ownership, so whether or not Gorgon counts it was irrelevant for the subject matter he produced. Not that you and Gorgon are wrong, clearly you're not but he was talking about people with a crap load of money in the bank and oh god I don't care anymore

I'd take "Wall Street generated" to mean stock market money, personally. But then I'm stupid and prone to misunderstandings.

A couple of years back, my ex dumped me for another chap. Today I found out they've split up whilst I'm in the early stages of buying a place with my missus of two years. Ain't no lol sweeter than a snide, slightly bitter schadenfreude lol.

So is Gfted saying that the money's coming from property investment or not? Because I don't think it's clear.

8%

I suspect it'll be the Yes camp with the strongest turn-out, conversely. It's an emotive issue and those voting yes will largely be voting with their hearts over their heads. The status quo ain't exactl motivating. I'm still in favour of invasion and subjugation.

Dunno if anybody else saw that video of the Quebecois chap saying vote yes, but it's pretty lol

Oh right, I wouldn't know. I'm too busy rolling in money on my Warwickshire estate to worry about insulting a bunch of proles. As long as they keep the horses groomed and don't get too uppity, I'll hold back on the public whippings. They won't mind, they'll have their hands full climbing the social ladder getting doctorates and positions in Parliament off the back of those second rate educational hand-outs they get from disinterested insurance corporations.

It sort of is insulting to the people born poor who managed to become succesful in spite of that, saying if you are poor you will stay poor implies poor people are completely powerless, people born into wealthy families do have a way easier time getting wealthy, but the above statement is claiming that there is no way you can manage to become succesful without always having been. Except I didn't say that. I said the poor start to suffer from less social mobility. It's a generalist term intended in a generalist sense, that of society as a whole making it harder for people to cross social boundaries. Harder, not impossible. A lack of social mobility is something I am very much against.

Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no.

*sigh* no I'm not saying that. Don't be ridiculous. I'm saying that everybody deserves a decent level of living. I'm saying there's nothing wrong with the state providing that care. I'm saying that by spreading that cost out across the nation through taxation, you're reducing the burden on those that can least afford to provide it for their families. I don't think I have anywhere stated anything that makes the above quote relevant. I don't care where rich people got their money from. It's their money and none of my business. It's not an insult to poor people at all. If anything, it's a criticism of the average attitude of rich people. I think nothing of the sort. I think that while many people achieve success, many more don't and those people don't deserve to end up on the floor. Those people are still people and they still deserve a decent standard of living. They deserve a safety net. They deserve to be able to get their diseases cured, their children schooled and they deserve not to starve. In short, they deserve to be looked after by the Government they've paid taxes to and voted for. They shouldn't have to turn to private companies to provide the basic standard of living that is their right as a citizen and a human being.

Yes, insurance *could* be done like that, but then you're lumping the entire cost of one family educating their children and providing their healthcare on that family. You rapidly start producing a two tier system where those that can afford better care do and those that can't, don't. You may not see this as a problem, but people, by their nature, seek to have as much as they can and hold onto it. People are selfish. In a country where a two-tier educational system prevails, you will see far less social mobility. Those that are well-educated (i.e rich) will necessarily rise to the most influential, best paid positions. Those that earn less will receive lower quality education and will not be as successful. The elite will legislate to keep them and theirs safe. In a society with state-provided education, social mobility is higher as the government, through taxation, pays for education. Everybody receives the same level of education and has the same chances. Britain has a two-tier system. The people who can pay for schooling on average rise higher. Britain's system is perhaps fairer than others, due to a state funded accessible educational system, but you can be taken out of it and sent to be educated privately. It's not fair, but nobody's telling people what they can and can't spend their money on and neither am I. The concept that people can make money off another person's health and therefore an insurance-based health system is abhorrent to me. However, the critical thing is to provide a decent basic level of free healthcare. Beyond that, the rich can have all the quacks, plastic surgeons, and private healthcare they like so long as decent, effective healthcare is accessible to all and paid for by the State through taxation.

Socialism in its purest form is literally communism - the "once we control the entire world and brainwash people for a few generations we'll abolish the more tyrannical portions of our state and people will naturally behave properly" part, western socialism just isn't pure socialism. You're referring to socialism in its most extreme form. Generally speaking, most people would say that extremism isn't to be encouraged. Certainly, most people in the Middle East would tend to agree. There is no reason that socialism and capitalism cannot work successfully in one economy. Most of Western Europe practices this to one extent or another, with private enterprise alongside universal healthcare, welfare states, state-owned utilities and so on. Calling communism "pure" socialism is a fundamental misunderstanding. In fact Marx and Engels were criticising "pure" (by which I mean the more-or-less original, contemporaneous socialism of the late 19th/early 20th centuries) when they wrote their works that were themselves debased further by Trotsky and Lenin. Communism is a product of decades of authoritarian, rather than liberal, socialism. In the West, more liberal forms were pursued. This directly led to unions protecting workers' rights, the NHS in Britain, government-funded compulsory education etc; all cornerstones of modern, Western civilisation and nothing that anybody in their right mind would consider negative. Christ, even Wikipedia's more detailed and accurate than that rubbish.

A civilised country practices to certain standards. A guarantee of adequate healthcare. A safety net when you find yourself out of work. A reasonable quality of life once you're retired. A country that doesn't hold itself to those standards cannot call itself a modern civilisation. Western socialism believes in these things. Sometimes it also espouses unions to protect workers' rights, a nationalised transportation system and so on. A socialist country doesn't necessitate a repressive dictatorial regime any more than a capitalist one prevents it. Too many people make the idiotic conclusion that socialism = communism. It doesn't.

Amusingly, that video looks to have been filmed in Scotland.

We're going entirely in the wrong direction, you know. We ought to be re-arming and recalling the colonies to their proper duties. America's made a right old hash of things and Mother needs to get her slipper off to deliver a damned good thrashing. In the new empire I would humbly accept a position as Minister for the Foreign Office.

Typical Russian lack of stomach for a proper scrap. What else can be expected from a nation that got taken apart by a bunch of yurt-dwelling nomads? They're lucky old John Bull didn't have to roll up his sleeves. They didn't come out of the last British intervention in the Crimea too well at all.

Excuse me, but the only thing any Scotsman has ever conquered is a bottle.

The funniest thing about all of this for me was that the last time Scotland was a sovereign country, they tried to copy England's successful colonialism, founded ONE colony, immediately went bankrupt and went south cap in hand begging to be rescued. The result? The Union of 1707.

I don't know, you spend the better part of a thousand years getting drunk and invading just about everybody and they get all bloo-bloo about it. Salmond's going to be well embarrassed in a couple of years when it turns out Walter Scott made up Scotland and they end up still being fat drunkards dying of heart attacks at thirty.

I find the fat guy offensive.