Ummm....what makes you think we weren't at a distance? That's what I was just talking about. I wasn't clear.

Ahh. I misunderstood.

I often find that in times of disaster, people set aside their political selves in order to help their fellow humans. What I find difficult to understandn is how that doesn't translate to a more inclusive compassion. They will get involved when a disaster affects many people; but if a family falls into its own personal disaster, that's their own business to deal with. Politically there is a lack of compassion for human frailty and failure, and a lack of compassion for the effects that poverty may have on the individuals concerned.

I don't recognize the people you are describing. Conservatives generally prefer to care for others personally. Funding bureacracies is not the same thing as caring.

Of course there are cases of abuse that make us all suspect of charitable organizations, but can't an organization do more than individuls? I've also found that people tend to care for people like themselves - you support a fellow church member or neighbor, for example. Is it likely that that wealthy consrvatives living in the suburbs will personally help a poor single mother and her family living in the city?

I'm not talking so much about the funding as I am talking about the attitude and rhetoric. The rhetoric many right-wing politicians adopt when talking about social problems is often scathing and lacking in human empathy for the people who are experiencing those problems. Certainly in this country the right used to orate against such groups as single mothers and the unemployed with a venom that made many of us flinch. Policy followed the rhetoric.

The unemployed, yes. "Welfare mothers," yes. But not single mothers. In America single mothers are put on a huge ass altar of martyrdom, by both parties. Some conservatives will quietly fund marriage initiatives, but Dan Quayle was the last person to make the mistake of specifically saying out loud that single motherhood was not as good as being married.

Dana I did expect them to turn their backs entirely- that's how cynical I was. Don't take my little bit of sunshine away!
I know what you are saying....
We'll pray for you, but keep your grubby hands out of our pocket-books.


You are lucky I just erased two paragraphs of details........

There's plenty of frustrations around here about the incompetence of government in keeping regulations and programs on task, relevant, and under control. Take the thread in Home Base about housing and farm regulations as an example. It's the same bunch of people sticking out their hands and saying "we know how to distribute your money better than you do".

Like UT, and this messageboard. He arrogantly distributes our posts, while we would be better served plopping random non sequiturs on the internet, and hoping they connected into threads. Down with the man!

Come again?:confused::eyebrow:

Robotoid

I meant that it's the same government officials sticking out their hands (use of my taxes), not members of the cellar. Was that it?

I would think that Flint is suggesting that there are times that central organization is justified and useful.

I find it disappointing that some folks have a hard time distinguishing between some jackass politician's (who happens to be a republican) rhetoric, and what real live individuals who happen to be political conservatives do or think.

So some senator is a firebrand against mom's on welfare. Does that mean that I as a conservative, must drive around looking for poor mothers to spit on? Is it possible that as a person (who happens to lean conservative in fiscal and political discussions) might just be... A PERSON first. I might just go out of my way to help those around me? Or that when I hear about someone in need I'm happy to help in the way I'm best suited?

I'm absolutely against a lot of government programs because I feel they are largely ineffective, generally inefficient, and quite often corrupt from the ground up. I am absolutely in support of helping out those around me when I see a need. I really wish douchebag politicians would quit taking so much of my money so I could help more of the people I see.

It looks kind of like this. If I see an individual who has issues with her car that will cost her $1000 that she just plain doesn't have, I can give her $1000 myself or get a couple of friends to pitch in and help, or I can call a contact and ask him to volunteer his labor to fix the car. But if a politician sees this individual and they think "this poor person needs a thousand dollars, how to do it?" next thing you know he has raised my taxes so I'm out $1000, he takes that $1000 puts it through the government sieve, creates a new program, hires a new bunch of folks to fill the bureaucracy, advertises the program, interviews the needy individuals to decide who is more in need and out of my $1000 this poor individual gets $8 for bus fare. But if they come back next month, they can have $8 more, and the month after that is an election month so they can have $10 so they'll have enough to make it to the polls, cuz "who loves ya baby".

There isn't much that the goverment can do better than we can as individuals.

But see, if they didn't create new programs, then we might not see how important they are, and if we didn't see how important they are we might start thinking we could live without them in Washington, and if we did that... what would happen to them?

Just remember, a government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul. or something like that.

What if you don't see her?