[sportbikebandit]

Wrong...

"We'll enjoy missing out on 100% of wildfires"

As an ex-forest fighter (6 seasons with the BLM) have to say you have your facts wrong. Red States (banjo music) Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, AZ, Utah, all have almost as many fires as California. The ones in CA just endanger more people and property, thus get more press.. Also they have to be fought more agressively. All of the really great fire incident comanders/bosses I knew had California experience. My district in Western Colorado alone had 100+ fires a season. Total acerage Red-State Alaska by far is the leader

Most mosquitos? Check out Alaska? Spent some time on a fire up there..

Oh yeah. Almost forgot John Kerry was a hero, still is....

 

[mile_eater]

Yes. Does the state own the business? No. The propieter does. It's his money.



Who the heck are you, or, who is the state, to be able to tell him who he can or can't fire, and for what reason?



Why should a man who's racist be forced to hire someone of the race he hates?



What power should the state have here?



it's assinine.



It's his business.



You blue staters should take a long look at cuba... and maybe consider moving there.

 

[056]

I work mostly from home now...

You're lucky if I'm wearing pants!

 

[Hutchinator]

Oxymoron

Wanna bet:

Military Inteligence

 

[Hutchinator]

Gee, thanks

Really, just not a mental image I needed.

 

[Hutchinator]

Good Point

While the Red v. Blue is quite entertaining, I have to agree with ncelik.

i.e. Ditto

PS: Kazaa 'Red v. Blue', very funny, but not bike-related so won't go in to.

 

[m_t_yeo]

Re: Yes, that was definitely clear as mud

I'll respond ...

Once again you've reinforced the fact that you are more close-minded than any of your targets.

LOL. I sure as hell wouldn't fire a competent mechanic for what bike he rides to work, so that automatically makes me more open-minded than the owner in the story.

Conservatism and liberalism[snip]

Long before those two words became politically charged, they were simply philosophies being bandied about in the 1700s. If you liked change, considered it good and necessary, allowed for it, etc. ... you were a liberal. If you liked things to remain the same, were afraid of change and saw it as something to avoid ... you were a conservative. Hence the word 'conserve'. If you aren't open to alternatives, you are conservative in your outlook ... and that owner certainly wasn't 'open' to his mechanic riding a Harley to work ... was he?

You also have very little grasp of the competitive marketplace.

Really? You know that after two posts?

Brands do mean something and no dealer can get by without doing a bit of brand promotion. Brands can't be the be all and end all, though. Dealerships lose the rights to brands all the time. Contracts end and aren't renewed. Brands go under. Brands move their manufacturing to Upper Slobovia and start making crap bikes. Competitors show up selling the same brand. These types of changes are all but inevitable and to build your business so heavily around a select group of brands that you cannot adapt when those changes occur means you aren't a very forward thinking businessman. Good businesses plan for change because change is inevitable. Bad businesses stick to their personal mantra long after it has become obvious that change is necessary.

What you're saying is that anyone that YOU deem to be a conservative is crooked and stupid.

Boiled down, I said that conservative thinking is what caused the owner to fire the mechanic for riding the Harley and that conservative thinking, carried to extremes, can lead to situations like you see in the dealership my friend works for. If you take any mindset (including a liberal mindset) and apply it all the time to every situation or if you apply it too zealously ... you will make decisions that will come back to haunt you.

A liberal thinking dealer might be too brand agnostic, for example. What bike should I buy? Well ... there's this one and this one and this one and this one, etc. Pretty soon, the customer is overwhelmed and walks out because they want hard facts and are getting the mealy-mouthed 'all bikes are good' answer. I've seen this, too.

The situation dictates what mindset is successful and that means that neither liberal or conservative thinking are ever truly right or wrong. There is only 'right in this situation' or 'wrong in this situation'.

take a long look in the mirror blahblahblahblah

I'm a liberal thinker and because of that, I respect your right to disagree and your right to your own opinion. Somehow, I don't get the feeling that I get the same courtesy in return ...

 

[m_t_yeo]

Re: Are you that self unaware?

Now ... THAT was funny.

 

[m_t_yeo]

Re: I think he has something here

Now, I can understand why, after 6 years as President, Dubya hasn't employed a single Dem in his administration and fires/belittles/attacks anyone who disagrees with him using his pet dog Rove.

 

[m_t_yeo]

LOL. I've been on three. Happened to get degrees in all three schools, too.



I happen to agree with you. Schools aren't very liberal at all and the higher you climb (grad school) the worse it gets.

 

[m_t_yeo]

Re: Are you that self unaware?

Two posts, based on a specific story about a specific employee and a specific employer make a prejudice?

I personally hate ideologies of any stripe. Pick your poison based on the situation, not because you decide in advance that you are a liberal and liberal's think like this and act like that.

I dumbed down the example into two camps to make the distinction in my reasoning easier to see, not because I think in simplistic dualities.

 

[m_t_yeo]

Firing someone is economic violence.



As an owner, you know that you are inflicting hardship on the firee and, if the firee has a family, on that family as well. Because of that, any reasonably compassionate employer is going to be judicious when canning someone, i.e. will do it for a good cause and when other alternatives haven't worked.



Having the right to fire willy-nilly doesn't mean that you should, in other words.

 

[m_t_yeo]

Because you disagree? I consider that a compliment!

 

[m_t_yeo]

Re: Are you that self unaware?

They aren't fantastic. They haven't fired me, though, and so they are open-minded enought to allow a guy who hates TV to work for the cable company. That's pretty good in my books.

 

[28945]

I suspect that more is going on here than meets the eye. Look into it and I'm certain we'll find that there's "history" with this particular employee. The HOG purchase, which I presume he flaunted about had to be calculated to irritate his boss. Unfortunately, for him it appears it was the last straw in the jar on his boss's desk. Regarding the silly spate of liberal/conservative interpretive theme letters, like MC-trouble shooting, it's recognizing the simple in-your-face lose connection that gets you rolling again and not complicating the process by searching for some tangential analytical solution. So, this incident really has nothing to do with competing political philosophies.

Nevertheless, it is fascinating to see certain respondent motorcyclists embracing liberalism (with a small l), when they should be acknowledging Libertarianism (with a large L) in the form of closet Republicans and Democrats. These are the folks, sometimes referred to erroneously as Conservatives, who continue to do battle in our interest and keep us from being legislated off the roads by the social agendaists who are convinced we need to be protected from ourselves and are intent on consolidating political power towards that end. Washington D.C. can't give you the freedom you already had and you can't fight the enemy until you can identify him.

 

[schizuki]

"he should of asked his boss in typical Red-State fashion what kind of bike he should buy, who should he vote for, etc."



Yeah, unlike those sophisticated, logical, independent-thinking liberals who inhabit academic echo-chambers and coffeehouse clusterthinks, take their political guidance from Alec Baldwin, Green Day, and the thoroughly discredited Michael Moore, and think "The Daily Show" is a legitimate news source. Pick up any boringly predictable alt-left weekly and you'll see more lemmings than at the bottom of a cliff.

 

[schizuki]

"You Red-staters (banjo music playing) crack me up.."



Make up your mind, kpaul - are Republicans stupid hicks, or MBA's and CEO's who rule the world?



It's like your Bush Paradox - "He's stupid, and an evil genius who twarts us at every turn."



You need to read Richard Hofstadter's "The PAranoid Style in American Politics" right now. Seeing that you have a problem is the first step to a cure.

 

[schizuki]

Re: Not Quite True

The point people are making, dipsh!t, is that the employer has the right to fire the guy, even if we don't agree with his reason. See, some of us believe people have the right to do things that are legal but we don't agree with. Your (typical) contribution to the discussion has been to throw in gratuitous non-sequiturs about Republicans and George Bush.

 

[schizuki]

"(My wife) says my hatred for W is irrational. I agree with her. "



Holy sh!t. What is an intelligent woman doing with you? I give this marriage four more years, tiops.



"To be honest he just reminds me of all the guys I hated in college: Never did any physical work in his life, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, used his daddy's influence to get by, while most of us had to work summer and part-time jobs to make it through school he partied. Life is not fair.... The guy who slides by becomes president and fracks up everthing the guy before him, who did know physical work and didn't slide by, did..."



Ah, so the root of liberal politics is jealousy. That's what I thought.



Me, I grew up poor and I'm just making ends meet now. Some guys got breaks. BFD. It's got nothing to do with me. My fate is my own, I don't worry about who's got more. The day I was born in this country, I was already richer than 90% of the people on Earth, so why should I envy someone who's richer than 95%?



BTW, you must REALLY hate John Kerry. Same education, and FAR more loaded than George. How many homes is he up to now?

 

[schizuki]

"I happen to agree with you. Schools aren't very liberal at all and the higher you climb (grad school) the worse it gets."



It's cute how you change the definition of "liberal" to suit your point. In this case, you're using it in the non-political sense. But surely you don't dispute the fact that college campuses are overwhelmingly "liberal" in the political sense. Thus, you have admitted that liberals are illiberal, and have negated your original post. Well done.