BlackDude

6 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

There's a big difference between sodomy laws and these others, because there the difference isn't "outweighing benefits to society"; it's that there is no benefit to society to police people's private sex lives.

And as a matter of fact, those laws against sodomy WERE enforced - at least, in some parts of the country. Not just by arresting people and convicting them of it, but by using those laws as tacit justification for denying gay people access to all sorts of things - security clearances in jobs, for instance. If being a criminal means you can't get a clearance, and you're admitting to being a criminal because you're openly gay, well, you can't have that job. That went on well into THIS century.

As for passing the IRS thing: If you had a single fucking clue you'd know that was part of a much, MUCH larger law - the Inflation Reduction Act. That law contained, in addition, billions to lower the costs of home energy and to help transition to renewables, billions for helping get American manufacturing back up to where it was before offshoring, billions for improving agricultural practices - and a hell of a lot more. 

But apparently because you (as best I can figure) only listen to right-wing news sources, all of that IN THE SAME FUCKING LAW is overlooked and all you seem to know about that law is that it has more money for the IRS. Money that, in fact, will be more than offset because the new agents auditing business and the rich will pull in far more in new revenue (that was previously going untaxed) than the cost of the agents.

1. I’m aware of the Inflation Reduction Act. They didn’t have to include increased IRS monitoring in the law. 
 

2. Corporations won’t be audited

3. Your assumption is incorrect. I don’t listen to right wing news sources. I don’t root for any political party. I don’t look at politics like a football game.

I vote for interests and an agenda. 

6 minutes ago, JimInWisc said:

We all know "Dems" have gotten lots of bills passed, well beyond IRS/Tax enforcement.  Which Dem is claiming this?  (and why are they not voted out?)

[think before following links] https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/congressional-democrats-deliver-promises-complicated/story?id=80691209
 

Here is one article. Bunch of excuses, which I covered in a previous comment. Of course, when I said “never get anything passed” i was generalizing. 

8 hours ago, topblkmale said:

Vote blue. 🤣

I’m not dedicated to either party. I vote on based on the agenda presented 

35 minutes ago, BootmanLA said:

Here's the problem with blithely using pronouns like "them" without an antecedent.

There has ALWAYS been a requirement for businesses (small or large) to report ALL of their income (unless there is a specific exclusion, and those are few).

And there has long (I can't say "always", but it's many decades old) been a requirement for businesses who pay another business more than $600 in a year to report that payment to the IRS, on a 1099 form.

So if I'm Joe's Accounting and Nail Salon, and I pay Bob's Lawnmowing more than $600 in the year to do the landscaping at my office, I'm supposed to send the IRS and Bob's a 1099 showing that I paid that money to them. That, as I say, has LONG been the law - going back to the 1970's at least, and probably much earlier.

And if I were ever audited, and I showed $800 on my books in payments to Bob, the IRS would look to see that I actually sent the 1099 to them and to Bob. That's how they verify that the payment is legitimate, because I'm going to deduct that $800 from my income as an expense - they need to be able to find where someone ELSE picked up that $800 as an expense. That's how it works. Otherwise, I could just write checks to various people and places (and deduct them as expenses), then they cash the checks and return the cash to me. That's tax fraud.

The big problem for the IRS, for a long time, has been cash transactions - if people pay cash for a service, it's very tempting for the business owner to just pocket the cash and never report it. That's illegal, and it means other people whose businesses operate more by check, credit card, or electronic transfers end up paying full taxes while the guy who takes a lot of cash does not. That's a fundamental fairness question.

But fewer and fewer people are paying with actual cash these days - they're using paypal, venmo, zelle, whatever. The IRS is using that paradigm shift in payments to treat those formerly cash (and thus hideable) payments as something that can be tracked, to ensure compliance with the law.

And again, the new burden is on the big payment processors, NOT the small business. The small business just has to do what it should have been doing: report all its income.

Anyone who thinks they shouldn't is encouraging tax cheating. Which, again, is your right to do: just admit you want small businesses to commit tax fraud.

I don’t disagree with anything you said technically. However, laws are only as good as their enforcement and enforcement requires resources. We have many laws on the books that we don’t enforce because they are not practical, dated/harm people or the resources to enforce them outweighs the benefits to society. That’s like arresting people for sodomy and saying “well the law is the law.” We have a social understanding that those laws should be ignored, and we don’t dedicate resources to enforcing it. 

The fact that Dems claim they can never get anything passed, except when it come to focusing on IRS/tax enforcement for smaller businesses tells me where their priorities are. 
 

15 minutes ago, BootmanLA said:

There's a term for looking at your own experience and extending it to cover the world: navel gazing.

There another term for ignoring your experiences refusing to acknowledge what you’ve seen in the world: delusion.

4 minutes ago, BootmanLA said:

You mean "blocking immigrants seeking a better life instead of going after tax cheats," right?

All in the wording.

And yes, I assumed reporting of income. That said, there are thresholds for all sorts of reporting from all sorts of parties, and which one you meant wasn't clear - thanks for specifying.

That $600 threshold for reporting is perfectly sensible - it's not putting any onus on small businesses; it's requiring payment platforms (paypal, venmo, whatever) who SEND the businesses money to report it. All a small business has to do is what it's always been required to do: report its income completely and fully, and there's no issue.

And yes, big business and the super rich cheat more, but it's often hard to prove, because they've got armies of accountants and lawyers looking for loopholes to stretch to reduce their taxable income. Which is why most of the extra IRS funding is going to hire more auditors to look over those returns carefully and push back on what I would call "questionable" interpretations of the rules.

That doesn't mean the IRS should just ignore small businesses that routinely and deliberately underreport their income. The 3rd party processor thing is the same kind of reporting that businesses have always had to do when paying for services, by filing 1099 forms for any business to whom they paid $600.

What boggles my mind is people actually defending tax cheats.

How are these people “tax cheats” when their was no requirement for them to report? 

What boggles my mind is people think it’s okay for us to spend resources to suppress hard working citizens and businesses while at the same time use more resources uplift non-citizens. US Tax payers are not obligated to ensure the economic prosperity if unlawful migrants or foreign countries. 
 

And in 2024, I think Dems will find out most of us believe the same. 

2 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

Lie? Where's the lie?

I acknowledge that "side" is a relatively new term in the sexual realm, but it didn't take me long to find out what it meant: someone who does not do anal sex, but will engage in other sexual activities such as mutual masturbation or oral sex.

Telling someone "I'm a side" *IS* them telling you that they're not going to fuck. It's no different than "Top" meaning "insertive partner" or "bottom" meaning "receptive partner" - it's a word used to describe a person's role. The fact that the role is "no anal" doesn't change that fact. And calling it a lie is, well, stupid. 

Since I’ve never met a gay man who won’t engage in sex (given the right person and situation), we will just have to agree to disagree.

2 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

You mean, when a president got funding to enforce the law, it was somehow a bad thing?

I'm not sure which "$600" requirement you're talking about, so I can't address that. Perhaps if you were clearer instead of just saying "reporting requirements" (for what? for whom?) people might be able to discuss the issues instead of just watching someone spew, well, random words.

[think before following links] [think before following links] [think before following links] https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-announces-delay-for-implementation-of-600-reporting-threshold-for-third-party-payment-platforms-forms-1099-k

[think before following links] https://www.cnbc.com/amp/select/irs-600-reporting-rule-delayed/

When most people discuss reporting and the IRS, they usually assume the reporting of income is the topic.  However, Here is a link for your reference. Is this clear enough for you? 
 

Also, that “funding to enforce the law” could be used to secure our borders instead squeezing small businesses. 

On 11/5/2023 at 4:03 AM, WiltsCumDump said:

On Grindr my profile clearly states “Bottom only” “BB”. I’ve turned down guys, who approached me, who have “Side” as their position and just wanted to cuddle, kiss and wank.  They got pretty insulting and took offence when I said that I am bottom and love getting fucked and bred not just kissing and wanking. 

anyone have similar issues… how did you handle It? 

You should take offense when someone lies to you. We have too many guys now lying about fucking and they need to be called out. Don’t create some new word to use as a buffer or screening for they guys you are too scared to tell you won’t have sex with them 

On 11/5/2023 at 3:05 AM, Flared said:

I need some thoughts about this. Or just to share your experience. Currently I have a bf. I believe it is safe to say I'm in love with that guy. If you remember from a previous post I have few sexual experience. My bf (24m) has a lesbian friend and she has a bunch of LGBTQ people that they are friends. They are not really his friends, but because she's the "link" they hung around every now and then. However, I can't stand any of them. They have a particular affinity for gay places which tends to be annoying. I am gay and this may sound weird but they overexpose me to LGBTQ content. Like, I get that you're gays but can't you be something more than a person defined by that? They do LGBTQ poetry, they go to LGBTQ places, events, stories on IG are similar. I'm just tired.

His lesbian friend is annoying. She always tells me to get out of the closet. But it annoys me the way she insists. She thinks that because she came out, everyone should. But she's ignorant of the fact that based on her looks, she needs no telling. She looks like a boy. She also has a thing with toxic masculinity. Based on her mind, I think that toxic masculinity is anyone who isn't a gay girl-looking guy. The rest of us are toxic. Why does she loathe something that she craves so deep to be?

The second annoying part is her gay bear friend. He has studied english literature and he holds a phd in LGBTQ literature. He's too snobbish. Sometimes I feel he's into me but at the same time he considers me as someone who is inferior. He doesn't like that I'm not from a big city, but he's blissfully ignorant of the history of my island. I suppose anything that isn't big and is not a queer center is not important.

I try to be kind to both of them. I've read that people like me (who are not used to lbgtq) can be somewhat homophobic. I try to think all that as the means of overcoming it. But I don't like them.

One last thing

He says that my english sucks. I don't believe it. I've watched so many series, I've read books, played games etc. From what I've written so far, could you tell me your thoughts on that? Native speakers would be the best judges of that.

 

Thank you for your time to read this

My unpopular advice is do you and follow your instincts. You will thank yourself later. There is no need to throw yourself headwind into the “gay community” if you don’t want to. I agree, being gay doesn’t have to be an entire lifestyle choice if you don’t want it to be. It’s just sex.

And ignore the lesbian. She’s not a man nor is she into men, therefore she has not clue on the expectations of masculinity or can make a judgment on it. 

Not saying this is the OP, but my two cents on some guys who are overly picky. 

Sometimes being overly picky is a form of narcissism and attention seeking (which usually go hand and hand) It’s not the act of sex they want, but the act of rejecting or dismissing someone that them gets off. Tuning men down gives them a false sense of superiority.

On 9/22/2023 at 7:09 AM, ellentonboy said:

But to block me prior to even knowing for sure I would be moving here was a real punch in the gut.

That’s an awful story, but common. Unfortunately, many gays are on the eternal quest for “something hotter,” so friendship, honesty and loyalty don’t factor in. 
 

One thing I’ve learned as a gay, is you have to be emotionally guarded, have tough skin and most of all, be able to fully turn the page quickly. That still doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt like hell sometimes. 

On 11/4/2023 at 1:18 PM, BootmanLA said:

I'm not sure when this magical time that you think Obama got "everything" he wanted from voters was. Please clarify.

When Obama took office in 2009, it was with a Senate that had 59 Democrats - one short of the number needed to overcome any filibuster. Mitch McConnell made it clear, even before inauguration, that the Republican minority would block anything and everything that Obama proposed - with the exception of a handful of bills related to recovering from the ongoing GOP-initiated Great Recession.

It took until July 7, 2009 for the legal challenges to the Minnesota election to be resolved, putting Al Franken in the Senate (giving the Democrats the ability to move legislation without Republican support). That lasted about three weeks, until Congress went on its customary August break, during which time Ted Kennedy died, leaving the Democrats with 59 votes again.

Kennedy's replacement, Scott Brown, was appointed and took office on September 24, 2009. The Democrats again had between then and February 4, 2010 - when Republican Scott Brown, elected in the special election to replace Kennedy, took over the seat. Given the regular flow of holiday breaks, etc., this second period of 60 Senators on the Democratic side actually involved only about 5 weeks of actual legislative activity, Combine that with the 3 weeks in July, and you're at roughly 2 months - TOTAL - when Obama and the Democrats held enough of a majority to pass anything.

That's the facts. Despite those headwinds, we got the stimulus bill out (which itself was crippled because some Democrats didn't want it to be as big as the president wanted) and the ACA - which also was limited because some Democrats insisted on gutting some major provisions.

The problem is not and was not the party. The problem is that certain members of the party don't support the party's aims because it's not advantageous for them, politically. 

That was a great history lesson, but doesn’t negate any of the other remedies. The Dems will always blame “civics” on why they can’t change the status quo. When Biden added hundreds of IRS agents, changed reporting requirements to $600 and added funding to incorporate the use of AI in tax audits, we didn’t hear anything about civics and elections.
 

And alot of their civics excuses are not in the constitution, They are just procedural rules.

Dems see themselves as a D.C. social club, with no clue, or intent, to help the citizens of Florida
 

On 10/29/2023 at 10:45 AM, viking8x6 said:

@hntnhole I think you misconstrued the scope of @BlackDude's comment. I read it as referring to the Democrats who are saying Biden is too old.

No, I meant exactly what I said. The Dems are doing nothing. And everytime they are called out on it, we get the same Schoolhouse Rock/Civics nonsense.  As if they don’t have every seat, the presidency, and all members of the SCOTUS, they are handcuffed.

Politics is just the allocation of resources, and there are several strategies they could use, even without a “supermajority”

1. Leverage- If you do this, we won’t do that, etc. See the Tea Party

2. Executive Order

3. Bureaucracy-Money may be allocated by congress, but it’s at the department level that decides where money goes. They could simply squeeze Florida and maldistibute the resources   
 

4. State Level- When there were anti-LGBT laws, many governors got together and decided to restrict some commerce to those states. California in particular. They could do the same for Florida. 

Truth is, Dems may claim they don’t like what’s going on in Florida, but not enough to do anything about it that offends the “casual” racists and bigots they hope to secure votes from.  
 

While the republicans want to reverse time, Dems want to freeze time in place and put you in a perpetual hamster wheel. Even when Obama got EVERYTHING he wanted from voters, they still said “he can’t do anything that harms his re-election.”
 

 You cannot reverse time, or freeze it. Both are unnatural, and impossible. 

On 10/22/2023 at 9:53 AM, hntnhole said:

Thanks for that perspective, BlackDude. 

I think there has to be more to it.  Folks who start businesses (generally "small" ones), are almost certainly motivated by wanting to provide a better life for their families here in the US than they had back in their homeland.  That is an admirable urge, and the one upon which our financial system was founded.  It does take a certain measure of industriousness, and a decent sense of what the market is for their proposed business.  

Once that business begins to flourish, they may open another location for that same business, often within relatively close proximity to their original business.  I doubt they're going after the "pale" customers at first, preferring to cater to their own community.  Once they achieve that kind of success, they begin to assess how to expand, into which communities, and that's when the endemic, deeply rooted racism becomes the major stumbling block.  I think it takes a few generations of family members to really comprehend just how deeply racism is imbedded in our society, and then how to overcome it by (what I understand to be) your description; proximity to whiteness.  

While it's instinctive to trust our own cultural group, that limits the potential growth too.  When that recognition becomes apparent (usually a generation or two after the initial founder), it also becomes clear that merely "proximity to whiteness" isn't enough to overcome the inbred, narrow hatreds that many Caucasians possess.   When the financial resources of Caucasians are required to really "make it", there are already a couple of generations that grew up in the US, and understand how to "work the system" to their benefit.  Recent immigrants don't enjoy that kind of understanding.  The deck is already stacked against any expansion - any *real* money/power.  

While the sorry excuse of a Governor here in FL is a (now nationally-proven) disgrace, I would wonder if the immigrants seeking to improve their lot in the US brought that with them, or picked it up here in the US.  The hellish practice of slavery existed on this continent before the US was even founded, and it's legacy is deeply imbedded in the population.  How would an "anti-Black" perspective become deeply infused into a population of some other country - say Cuba?  I've never been there, and know little about it. What I know of Cuban immigrants, is they're a hard-working, cheerful group, and most welcome here.  While I've heard plenty of racist shit through the years, I can't remember hearing anything singling out Cuban-Americans.    

Thanks for your interesting addition.

There is deep, anti-black colorism and racism in Latin culture. And this includes Cuba. An quick YouTube or google search will show numerous Afro-Latinos lamenting this. 
 

Many of these people bring racist attitudes with them from their countries. In Florida, we see this playing out.  

On 10/22/2023 at 12:58 AM, Grschwanz said:

florida is becomg more red. its scary. School teachers are not even allowed to have pictures of their partner if they are gay .

add to that,  homes are no longer insurable. That means your investment in  property will eventually become worthless. Get out of Florida while there is still time.  

gina Thomas and Trump are not joking when they say they are going to arrest people and send them to gitmo. trump could easily come back as so many people, including Democrats,  are falsely accusing Biden of becoming too old

And the Democrats aren’t doing a thing about it. 

On 1/31/2023 at 4:41 PM, hntnhole said:

I would add that, after the fall of the Batista Government, there were tons of small-business owners who felt they had worked hard to have what they had, and fled to FL, packing their industriousness right along with their undies.  Small business owners (well, most business owners, for that matter) are R's mostly for financial reasons.  In my short experience in FL, I find these to be quite industrious folk.  While dominating the Miami area, just to the north is Broward County, the most "blue" county in the state.  There are plenty of small business owners of Cuban origin here in Ft. L. too.  I have no knowledge about what percentage of these people drank the Orange Jesus cool-aid, but I'm assuming there was a substantial number.  

From my experience, most Cubans tilt Republican for social reason more so than political or financial. Although both parties are problematic on issues of race, DeSantis anti-black policies appeal to a large number them. They feel the key to political and financial success is not Justice, but proximity to whiteness. 
 

Italians, like DeSantis, were grandfathered into whiteness in this country. Unfortunately, many Latinos want to mimic this strategy 

10 hours ago, minthulf said:

So why the word "immigrant"

Because that is what they are, they are going to (migrating) into (im) the point of reference (the USA)

You show an implicit understanding of this by using the adjective "legal", differentiating on ways migration can be framed.
 

Now, regarding legality; well firstly and obviously Legal is not synonymous with Correct, or Just, or Moral. Legality is an empirical fact, morality is more metaphysical (though most people care more for the latter than for the former, as we tend to understand that laws, even moreso than history, are written by -and for- the powerful)

That said, many of these migrants are in fact lawfully seeking entry into the USA by right of refuge; they are refugees from countries that the USA has played a significant role in destabilizing. The resistance to admitting them (and even outright turning away) by the governments of the usa is an illegal act (though no power exists that can compel the governments to follow their own laws). One can tell that they prefer entering lawfully because they are making something of a spectacle of the crossing; those seeking entry through illegal means tend to be quiet about it; these are people demanding justice and asylum.

Further "immigration process" is a hazy term. I mean in one way migration is in itself the process; the moving is the process. One emigrates from a country and simmultaneously immigrates into another.

Now if one is talking about legal processes...

well for one, on what legal basis is the USA constituted; its independence from the United Kingdom was not attained through legal means; it was retroactively granted legality as a result of violence; but as Civil Wars the world throughout show, this legality does not exist a priori. Similarly the original settlement of the territory by Europeans was not lawful by the laws of the people living in the territory itself, and oftentimes nor by the laws of the settlers themselves (cf the many treaties the USA broke during its expansions). The state itself is thus illegal, its laws backed only by the power of the state to do violence.

so, taking a strictly legalistic perspective might not be the most honest way to go about things; especially if many of these people are seeking to go through the process legally but are being kept from it by the government,

As to Arabic presence in Egypt; Afro-Americans; and immigrating into a country before establishment;

Yes you are right, folk cannot immigrate into a state before the state exists; country is a bit more ambiguous because country tends to refer to the intersection of territory (which exists before the establishment of the state) and state (the social structure brought into being for the administration of the land and people).  Keeping this distinction between land and state is important and why you aren't calling citizens "natives" though it  (and relatives terms such as autochthon) is the technical antonym for "immigrant"; you call them citizens, because you understand there is a difference between those that got here and forced other people out, and the people that were forced oute... which is a form of immigration though does feel severe enough that we tend not to talk about it as merely immigration but rather:

Colonization.

Honestly talking of european presence in this continent in terms of "immigration" tends to minimize the brutality of the process.

which kinda touches on the whataboutism that is Arabs in Egypt, yeah there was a colonization process, though the process also involved a lot of standard migration, and overal is spread out over enough time and changes of state that... well its not honestly a very productive talk to have wrt the situation in the USA-Mexico Border

as to immigration of Africans into the continent; yeah we tend not to call kidnapping or the coerced movement of people "immigration"; it technically is but we tend to refer to it as "trafficking" or "kidnapping" and typically seek to redress the harm caused. But in this case "migrant" is not incorrent, though "coloniser" would be (incorrect that is).

 

TLDR: we are not a law forum, heck a lot of us are scofflaws, the conversation is more about hypotheticals and ideals rather than actionable policy.

Also the state is a fiction, hierarchies of power ought be abolished, landback, etc...

Words have legal meanings, and social meanings. The term immigration is being used to cause social confusion, to make the people at the border comparative to legal immigrants. The logic that everyone is an immigrant except native people is a bad faith argument, and ignore the fact many of those people made deals to GIVE their land away. 
 

As to your point about the USA controlling  their governments, the people of those countries also share responsibility. These people are coming here for economic reasons, not political reasons. Which is fine, I believe they need to go through the process and US citizens should not have to pay for the free benefits of non citizens.

The CumUnion party is my city Is a disgrace to the name. The club promotes it to bring guys out, but it’s the same guys standing around waiting on perfection. Very little fucking. And when guys do fuck, people gathering around giggling and pointing like a bunch of school girls.

On 5/23/2023 at 10:09 AM, NWUSHorny said:

I'm not sure that these apply outside my local area, I haven't noticed them anywhere else.

 

Men bringing dildos to sex clubs and wanting to use them instead of a real life hard cock

Going to sex clubs and only wanting to cuddle, most of them get pissed off if you try to involve a cock, either theirs or yours

Guys walking around the sex clubs with their dick locked in a chastity device

 

They never were big on fucking (some of them know a 1001 ways to have really great sex where no one has to touch an icky dick) since I've lived here, but these "trends" make it even worse.

 

You really hate cuddling and guys who don’t fuck. Almost as much as I hate the trend of these faux bi-sexual/gay-straight men. 

1 hour ago, Jandrosgape said:

That is a  untrue response to a racist statement that you got called out on.   As I said- hardon killer.   

Actually, a factual statement, and nothing racial about what I said. 
 

I simply called out the fallacy and deliberate  dishonesty  of comparing those at the border to legal immigrants and citizens. 
 

2 hours ago, Jandrosgape said:

Lots of stupid crap here- really kills a hardon.  How did you get here?  How did 2/3 of the people of this country get here?  Unless you are a member of one of the nations of native peoples, answer it for yourself. In silence. 

I did not immigrate here. There was no United States when my people came.  You cannot immigrate to a country before it is established. 

Everyone in the US is not an immigrant. That logic is ridiculous. Are the Arabs in Egypt immigrants because they weren’t the original inhabitants? Are the Afro Latinos who don’t have Native American Roots immigrants?  
 

I don’t understand why we are referring to these people as immigrants. They did not go through an immigration process.

Power is not inclusive, but exclusive. The more me you invite under the LGBTQ+ umbrella, the more the message will be diluted and resources will be redirected. The very law of nature is that diluting weakens. 

Unfortunately, gay men have this recent obsession (led by Gen X) with classifying gay men as everything but gay. While this may be sexually and psychologically gratifying, it is absolutely political suicide. 

Gay men need to have a specific agenda and code, and only allow those who push the agenda guests to represent. All other must be called out and discredited. While I have my issues with the “gay community,” that’s my two cents in the topic. 

Are we to assume that republicans and gays are two different things?