I Miss Bush
Ok, I admit it. I miss Bush. I think the democrats have made things worse. In fact, I think most of America feels the same way. How do you feel??
I feel like you are gonna get hammered for saying that here.
most girls trim much more than they did in the 80s, Sarge. You might have trouble finding any serious bush.
.
Ok, I admit it. I miss Bush. I think the democrats have made things worse. In fact, I think most of America feels the same way. How do you feel??
I disagree with you, sarge. I think the bush years were worse, and I think the facts support that. I do, however, agree that most Americans feel the same way that you do.
Everything wrong with Obama is ways he's not enough of an improvement from Bush.
When you're raised by a Commie Mommie and spend twenty years sitting in Jeremiah Wright's congregation... your values don't much coincide with the values that preserve and sustain the Republic. I look forward to voting against Mr. Obama again in 2012.
Scalp the Socialist Democrats! There are no rational reasons to vote for one. Only bad excuses, designed to appeal to people who utterly refuse rational thought. Don't be one of those guys.
No.
You believe in something different than I do, you either convincingly defend it, or show yourself a lame-o, Shawnee. Remember just how well I think, and how when you're left, you cannot be right.
You're a laughable pompous ass. It's tiresome. Shut up. And as to your bedfellows? Wow, any credibility you might have had gets completely blown away.
Now tell me how stupid I am. Yawn.
Shawnee, if you have any values a person who understands values would recognize as valuable, I think it's incumbent on you to show them. Hasn't much happened so far.
I vote the way I do because I'm bright. You vote the way you do, because you're -- what?
There's been too much thinking like you, and not enough thinking like me. That is why the Republic and the dollar are both damaged. How severe the damage is, well, people argue -- and it yet remains to be seen.
No, I shall never cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand.
I am a million beautiful things that you will never be, let alone understand. Now go play White Oleander somewhere else. You're truly a boor. I think classic and merc's asses need wiping; get busy, little boy-man.
Don't bring me into your pissing match.
Kwitcherbitchin', Classic. I know your heart, and it's really a pretty good one.
UG was pissing into your mouth, not me.
ecky ecky ecky shoooboooing gooop jalaiah gewaaaahnnnnn
I am a million beautiful things that you will never be, let alone understand. Now go play White Oleander somewhere else. You're truly a boor. I think classic and merc's asses need wiping; get busy, little boy-man.
Oh, suuuuure. And look who's losing her grip on her class, m'dear. What chance do you think your sneers have of reducing me? Permit me to clue you: zero. I am rude to people who are determined to be unintelligent; you figure it out.
I stay urbane, whilst the left's partisans froth.
Yet, your posts don't back up your words. You do the same thing, o wise and mighty shitfuck.
Get your cock out of classic's ass and THINK!
Shaw - Go get a glass of water and take your meds.
And leave me the _ _ _ _ out of your pissing match.
Shaw - Go get a glass of water and take your meds.
And leave me the _ _ _ _ out of your pissing match.
OMG WAIT. Don't delete me. I had NO FUCKING IDEA classic was so clever. Take your meds. OMG OMG OMG. :lol2: That is so funny. I see what you did with that. Mother of FUCK how can anyone be so goddam funny? Really? Wow. Who on earth would have ever thought of such a thing? OMG!!111
Call Mel Brooks: he's missing an angel!
What did I say?
.
IMO we are better off now than with Bush. We would be in a lot better shape if the stated and played goal of the republicans in the house and senate wasn't to say no to everything just to make sure that Obama is a one -term president. They even voted no on bills that THEY originally wrote just so it would not pass on Obama's watch.
And curse me all you want but i truly believe it IS all about race.
UG is funny.
And I miss Clinton.
Muntazer al-Zaidi missed Bush. Twice.
Looks like I kicked the top off of a fire ant mound! Whew. Anyway, I believe today's election will illustrate just how unhappy America is with Obama and Congress.
I think it might show how unhappy people are with themselves.
No, it will show people are unhappy with the shenanigans in congress, and that corporate money spewing hate 24/7 will influence elections. I said before, 1% of the tv ads were vote for me, and 99% were vote against him. A campaign of half truths, distortions and outright lies, delivered in sound bites 24/7, is very effective.
Muntazer al-Zaidi missed Bush. Twice.
For the WIN!
Looks like I kicked the top off of a fire ant mound! Whew. Anyway, I believe today's election will illustrate just how unhappy America is with Obama and Congress.
What are they unhappy with Obama for? The recession and the ensuing bailouts and stimulous? That was all due to Bush. The Budget deficit/natioanl debt? Bush drove them up. Remember that the 2009 budget and spending belonged to bush.
What else is making you unhappy?
When you're raised by a Commie Mommie and spend twenty years sitting in Jeremiah Wright's congregation... your values don't much coincide with the values that preserve and sustain the Republic. I look forward to voting against Mr. Obama again in 2012.
Scalp the Socialist Democrats! There are no rational reasons to vote for one. Only bad excuses, designed to appeal to people who utterly refuse rational thought. Don't be one of those guys.
Please crawl back in your hole.
most girls trim much more than they did in the 80s, Sarge. You might have trouble finding any serious bush.
I agree, most of the ones who still have hair are hippies or over the age of 60.
No, it will show people are unhappy with the shenanigans in congress, and that corporate money spewing hate 24/7 will influence elections. I said before, 1% of the tv ads were vote for me, and 99% were vote against him. A campaign of half truths, distortions and outright lies, delivered in sound bites 24/7, is very effective.
No different than what the Dems did 4 years ago; you are correct, very effective.
Remember just how well I think.
I vote the way I do because I'm bright. .
I am rude to people who are determined to be unintelligent
I stay urbane.
Your words are the very antithesis of themselves. Those who are truly smart and urbane never need to point it out. :)
You're welcome.
I do not mish Bush. The only thing I miss from that era is the relative quiet from the died-in-the-wool republicans of low moral fiber, who were busy feathering their nests while they had the chance. Now they squark loudly, worried that they didn't grab enough feathers from the lesser birds. If only they could scare people into believing their guy will be best for them even though it isn't true. Oh wait, they can. Because of their low moral fiber. they have no qualms persuading the less intelligent poor that it really will be good for them to have no state support, no education and no medical insurance. Sadly their counterparts on the more humane side of the political spectrum have more integrity and their honest picture of the future just isn't as appealing. It's like offering a child the choice between Sunny Delight and a vegetable smoothie. Bad parenting.
I don't miss Bush either, but for a host of other reasons.
I can't wait til I won't have to miss Obama too. Two more years....
The Obama administration has yet to live up to it's promise, it's true.
But I do not miss Bush. I remember the Bush administration much too clearly to miss Bush.
I don't miss Bush either, but for a host of other reasons.
I can't wait til I won't have to miss Obama too. Two more years....
Plus 4.
[SIZE="7"]:D[/SIZE]Those who are truly smart and urbane never need to point it out. :)
that's like having a license plate on your car that reads 'KLASSY'
yes, she had red hair.
har.
(beest likes redheads)
[YOUTUBE]YV0LGMGuLN0[/YOUTUBE]
The staging of that in Spamalot was brilliant!
Mmm, tasty that. Was it grass-fed?
Please crawl back in your hole.
Can you be right when you're left, V? I'm right. I'm also libertarian, of the right-lib description. I've said that often, and tried to show it.
So, with just the merest touch of regret, request denied. You Jackass Party types are losing big, and you know it, and I know you know it. When the Party Of No Values is brought to account, how painful it is for you.
The staging of that in Spamalot was brilliant!
I would have loved to had the chance to see that. But I would have wanted to see the original version. I am not sure the off Broadway one would have been as good.
I saw it off Broadway and found it hilarious. You might be taking your chances but there is a lot of talent in the world.
I miss the way our country was in late fall of 2001. We were united. People showed patriotism and meant it.
I miss the way our country was in late fall of 2001. We were united. People showed patriotism and meant it.
That was in spite of bush (in many cases), not because of.
I miss the way our country was in late fall of 2001. We were united. People showed patriotism and meant it.
They also showed a lot of hatred, intolerance, racism, stupidity and bigotry and meant it. (I probably missed a few, but you get the drift). However, I'm sure the armed forces were suddenly appreciated a whole lot more and that has faded now
That was in spite of bush (in many cases), not because of.
I think most people barely knew who he was or what he was about since he had really only been in office 9 months.
I think most people barely knew who he was or what he was about since he had really only been in office 9 months.
True. I should have payed more attention to the date specified.
Still had nothing to do with Bush.
I miss the way our country was in late fall of 2001. We were united. People showed patriotism and meant it.
Bush certainly squandered that quite spectacularly, when he invaded Iraq and tried to equate support for that to patriotism.
I strongly support Operation Iraqi Freedom. I think it was an excellent strategic move to force AQ to fight in Southwest Asia instead of being able to choose their own battleground, such as the US.
We managed to sort of create and sort of defeat Al Qaeda In Iraq, I suppose, but Al Qaeda Everywhere Else was just fine. It wasn't a flypaper strategy; it was a hunk of rotting meat strategy. Rotting meat certainly attracts flies, but more than that it allows them to breed.
You might as well build a filthy hospital to attract all of the germs from the other hospitals.
AQI and ISI siphoned manpower and funding from AQ thus depriving them of the means to successfully conduct attacks on our soil.
Attracting some flies into a newly created fly breeding ground doesn't diminish the number of flies, even if you swat some.
True. I should have payed more attention to the date specified.
Still had nothing to do with Bush.
C'mon guys, haven't you heard 9/11 was Bush's fault too?
And he killed Cock Robin. But that's not what we're discussing here.
No different than what the Dems did 4 years ago; you are correct, very effective.
Maybe in Georgia, but not here. This was a completely different campaign season. I was watching former Governor Dupont, from Delaware, on PBS tonight. He was saying pretty much the same thing, in that he was amazed how different this campaign season was from anything he'd ever seen.
I think most people barely knew who he was or what he was about since he had really only been in office 9 months.
Yet you knew who Obama was the day after he was elected. Riiiiight.
C'mon guys, haven't you heard 9/11 was Bush's fault too?
Not his fault but he was warned and chose to ignore it.
I disagree with you, sarge. I think the bush years were worse, and I think the facts support that. I do, however, agree that most Americans feel the same way that you do.
I was incorrect. The Dems held the house, so I guess More Americans did not agree with you.
I was incorrect. The Dems held the house, so I guess More Americans did not agree with you.
Huh? Do I need to go running off to the news sites? The Dems barely held the Senate, it wasn't even close for the House.
The Dems held the Senate.
Huh? Do I need to go running off to the news sites? The Dems barely held the Senate, it wasn't even close for the House.
I figure if most (more than half) of Americans agreed, the pubes would have take the senate, too. They didn't, so they don't.
I was incorrect. The Dems held the house, so I guess More Americans did not agree with you.
Excuse me: the dems held the Senate
It's the R's turn again... If they don't get "it" done, they'll be out next election.
Political patience of the people seems to be at near zero.
Bush certainly squandered that quite spectacularly, when he invaded Iraq and tried to equate support for that to patriotism.
Not to mention that bit of exquisite legerdemain where he managed to conflate 9/11 and his old family friend Bin Laden with Al Quaida and Iraq. That was sweet.
It's the R's turn again... If they don't get "it" done, they'll be out next election.
Political patience of the people seems to be at near zero.
They were saying on the radio this morning that this is another pendulum swing of the large moderate group who is just dissatified with the the way things are and reacts against who is in power hopeing for seomthing better.
I guess next time it will be a competetion as to who can claim credit for anything good that happens, unemployment falling, or pin the blame on the other guys for anything bad, house prices still in doldrums.
Maybe this will bring back more fond memories:
[FONT=Arial]Published on Wednesday, January 15, 2003 by the Times/UK [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The United States of America Has Gone Mad [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]by John le Carré[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams. As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded. The combination of compliant US media and vested corporate interests is once more ensuring that a debate that should be ringing out in every town square is confined to the loftier columns of the East Coast press. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The imminent war was planned years before bin Laden struck, but it was he who made it possible. Without bin Laden, the Bushjunta would still be trying to explain such tricky matters as how it came to be elected in the first place; Enron; its shameless favouring of the already-too-rich; its reckless disregard for the world s poor, the ecology and a raft of unilaterally abrogated international treaties. They might also have to be telling us why they support Israel in its continuing disregard for UN resolutions. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]But bin Laden conveniently swept all that under the carpet. The Bushies are riding high. Now 88 per cent of Americans want the war, we are told. The US defence budget has been raised by another $60 billion to around $360 billion. A splendid new generation of nuclear weapons is in the pipeline, so we can all breathe easy. Quite
what war 88 per cent of Americans think they are supporting is a lot less clear. A war for how long, please? At what cost in American lives? At what cost to the American taxpayer s pocket? At what cost because most of those 88 per cent are thoroughly decent and humane people in Iraqi lives? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America s anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre. But the American public is not merely being misled. It is being browbeaten and kept in a state of ignorance and fear. The carefully orchestrated neurosis should carry Bush and his fellow conspirators nicely into the next election. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Those who are not with Mr Bush are against him. Worse, they are
with the enemy. Which is odd, because I m dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam s downfall just not on Bush s terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America s Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]God also has pretty scary connections. In America, where all men are equal in His sight, if not in one another s, the Bush family numbers one President, one ex-President, one ex-head of the CIA, the Governor of Florida and the ex-Governor of Texas. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Care for a few pointers? George W. Bush, 1978-84: senior executive, Arbusto Energy/Bush Exploration, an oil company; 1986-90: senior executive of the Harken oil company. Dick Cheney, 1995-2000: chief executive of the Halliburton oil company. Condoleezza Rice, 1991-2000: senior executive with the Chevron oil company, which named an oil tanker after her. And so on. But none of these trifling associations affects the integrity of God s work. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]In 1993, while ex-President George Bush was visiting the ever-democratic Kingdom of Kuwait to receive thanks for liberating them, somebody tried to kill him. The CIA believes that somebody was Saddam. Hence Bush Jr s cry: That man tried to kill my Daddy. But it s still not personal, this war. It s still necessary. It s still God s work. It s still about bringing freedom and democracy to oppressed Iraqi people. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]To be a member of the team you must also believe in Absolute Good and Absolute Evil, and Bush, with a lot of help from his friends, family and God, is there to tell us which is which. What Bush won t tell us is the truth about why we re going to war. What is at stake is not an Axis of Evil but oil, money and people s lives. Saddam s misfortune is to sit on the second biggest oilfield in the world. Bush wants it, and who helps him get it will receive a piece of the cake. And who doesn t, won t. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]If Saddam didn t have the oil, he could torture his citizens to his heart s content. Other leaders do it every day think Saudi Arabia, think Pakistan, think Turkey, think Syria, think Egypt. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Baghdad represents no clear and present danger to its neighbours, and none to the US or Britain. Saddam s weapons of mass destruction, if he s still got them, will be peanuts by comparison with the stuff Israel or America could hurl at him at five minutes notice. What is at stake is not an imminent military or terrorist threat, but the economic imperative of US growth. What is at stake is America s need to demonstrate its military power to all of us to Europe and Russia and China, and poor mad little North Korea, as well as the Middle East; to show who rules America at home, and who is to be ruled by America abroad. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The most charitable interpretation of Tony Blair s part in all this is that he believed that, by riding the tiger, he could steer it. He can t. Instead, he gave it a phoney legitimacy, and a smooth voice. Now I fear, the same tiger has him penned into a corner, and he can t get out. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]It is utterly laughable that, at a time when Blair has talked himself against the ropes, neither of Britain s opposition leaders can lay a glove on him. But that s Britain s tragedy, as it is America s: as our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way. Blair s best chance of personal survival must be that, at the eleventh hour, world protest and an improbably emboldened UN will force Bush to put his gun back in his holster unfired. But what happens when the world s greatest cowboy rides back into town without a tyrant s head to wave at the boys? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Blair s worst chance is that, with or without the UN, he will drag us into a war that, if the will to negotiate energetically had ever been there, could have been avoided; a war that has been no more democratically debated in Britain than it has in America or at the UN. By doing so, Blair will have set back our relations with Europe and the Middle East for decades to come. He will have helped to provoke unforeseeable retaliation, great domestic unrest, and regional chaos in the Middle East. Welcome to the party of the ethical foreign policy. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]There is a middle way, but it s a tough one: Bush dives in without UN approval and Blair stays on the bank. Goodbye to the special relationship. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]I cringe when I hear my Prime Minister lend his head prefect s sophistries to this colonialist adventure. His very real anxieties about terror are shared by all sane men. What he can t explain is how he reconciles a global assault on al-Qaeda with a territorial assault on Iraq. We are in this war, if it takes place, to secure the fig leaf of our special relationship, to grab our share of the oil pot, and because, after all the public hand-holding in Washington and Camp David, Blair has to show up at the altar. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] But will we win, Daddy? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] Of course, child. It will all be over while you re still in bed. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] Why? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] Because otherwise Mr Bush s voters will get terribly impatient and may decide not to vote for him. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] But will people be killed, Daddy? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] Nobody you know, darling. Just foreign people. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] Can I watch it on television? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] Only if Mr Bush says you can. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] And afterwards, will everything be normal again? Nobody will do anything horrid any more? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] Hush child, and go to sleep. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Last Friday a friend of mine in California drove to his local supermarket with a sticker on his car saying: Peace is also Patriotic . It was gone by the time he d finished shopping. [/FONT]
[CENTER][CENTER][FONT=Arial]Copyright 2003 Times Newspapers Ltd[/FONT][/CENTER]
[/CENTER]
It's the R's turn again... If they don't get "it" done, they'll be out next election.
Political patience of the people seems to be at near zero.
I could see it both ways. The democrats still hold the senate and Obama is still in the White House so if the tea party can convince people that they couldn't do anything because of that, it may work in their favor.
Also, many moderate democrats got the boot so this upcoming 2 years should be even more polarized. I am interested to see what they will do with the budget.
Maybe this will bring back more fond memories:
[FONT=Arial]Published on Wednesday, January 15, 2003 by the Times/UK [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The United States of America Has Gone Mad [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]by John le Carré[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams. As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded. The combination of compliant US media and vested corporate interests is once more ensuring that a debate that should be ringing out in every town square is confined to the loftier columns of the East Coast press. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The imminent war was planned years before bin Laden struck, but it was he who made it possible. Without bin Laden, the Bushjunta would still be trying to explain such tricky matters as how it came to be elected in the first place; Enron; its shameless favouring of the already-too-rich; its reckless disregard for the world s poor, the ecology and a raft of unilaterally abrogated international treaties. They might also have to be telling us why they support Israel in its continuing disregard for UN resolutions. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]But bin Laden conveniently swept all that under the carpet. The Bushies are riding high. Now 88 per cent of Americans want the war, we are told. The US defence budget has been raised by another $60 billion to around $360 billion. A splendid new generation of nuclear weapons is in the pipeline, so we can all breathe easy. Quite what war 88 per cent of Americans think they are supporting is a lot less clear. A war for how long, please? At what cost in American lives? At what cost to the American taxpayer s pocket? At what cost because most of those 88 per cent are thoroughly decent and humane people in Iraqi lives? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America s anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre. But the American public is not merely being misled. It is being browbeaten and kept in a state of ignorance and fear. The carefully orchestrated neurosis should carry Bush and his fellow conspirators nicely into the next election. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Those who are not with Mr Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the enemy. Which is odd, because I m dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam s downfall just not on Bush s terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America s Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]God also has pretty scary connections. In America, where all men are equal in His sight, if not in one another s, the Bush family numbers one President, one ex-President, one ex-head of the CIA, the Governor of Florida and the ex-Governor of Texas. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Care for a few pointers? George W. Bush, 1978-84: senior executive, Arbusto Energy/Bush Exploration, an oil company; 1986-90: senior executive of the Harken oil company. Dick Cheney, 1995-2000: chief executive of the Halliburton oil company. Condoleezza Rice, 1991-2000: senior executive with the Chevron oil company, which named an oil tanker after her. And so on. But none of these trifling associations affects the integrity of God s work. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]In 1993, while ex-President George Bush was visiting the ever-democratic Kingdom of Kuwait to receive thanks for liberating them, somebody tried to kill him. The CIA believes that somebody was Saddam. Hence Bush Jr s cry: That man tried to kill my Daddy. But it s still not personal, this war. It s still necessary. It s still God s work. It s still about bringing freedom and democracy to oppressed Iraqi people. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]To be a member of the team you must also believe in Absolute Good and Absolute Evil, and Bush, with a lot of help from his friends, family and God, is there to tell us which is which. What Bush won t tell us is the truth about why we re going to war. What is at stake is not an Axis of Evil but oil, money and people s lives. Saddam s misfortune is to sit on the second biggest oilfield in the world. Bush wants it, and who helps him get it will receive a piece of the cake. And who doesn t, won t. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]If Saddam didn t have the oil, he could torture his citizens to his heart s content. Other leaders do it every day think Saudi Arabia, think Pakistan, think Turkey, think Syria, think Egypt. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Baghdad represents no clear and present danger to its neighbours, and none to the US or Britain. Saddam s weapons of mass destruction, if he s still got them, will be peanuts by comparison with the stuff Israel or America could hurl at him at five minutes notice. What is at stake is not an imminent military or terrorist threat, but the economic imperative of US growth. What is at stake is America s need to demonstrate its military power to all of us to Europe and Russia and China, and poor mad little North Korea, as well as the Middle East; to show who rules America at home, and who is to be ruled by America abroad. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The most charitable interpretation of Tony Blair s part in all this is that he believed that, by riding the tiger, he could steer it. He can t. Instead, he gave it a phoney legitimacy, and a smooth voice. Now I fear, the same tiger has him penned into a corner, and he can t get out. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]It is utterly laughable that, at a time when Blair has talked himself against the ropes, neither of Britain s opposition leaders can lay a glove on him. But that s Britain s tragedy, as it is America s: as our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way. Blair s best chance of personal survival must be that, at the eleventh hour, world protest and an improbably emboldened UN will force Bush to put his gun back in his holster unfired. But what happens when the world s greatest cowboy rides back into town without a tyrant s head to wave at the boys? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Blair s worst chance is that, with or without the UN, he will drag us into a war that, if the will to negotiate energetically had ever been there, could have been avoided; a war that has been no more democratically debated in Britain than it has in America or at the UN. By doing so, Blair will have set back our relations with Europe and the Middle East for decades to come. He will have helped to provoke unforeseeable retaliation, great domestic unrest, and regional chaos in the Middle East. Welcome to the party of the ethical foreign policy. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]There is a middle way, but it s a tough one: Bush dives in without UN approval and Blair stays on the bank. Goodbye to the special relationship. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]I cringe when I hear my Prime Minister lend his head prefect s sophistries to this colonialist adventure. His very real anxieties about terror are shared by all sane men. What he can t explain is how he reconciles a global assault on al-Qaeda with a territorial assault on Iraq. We are in this war, if it takes place, to secure the fig leaf of our special relationship, to grab our share of the oil pot, and because, after all the public hand-holding in Washington and Camp David, Blair has to show up at the altar. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] But will we win, Daddy? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] Of course, child. It will all be over while you re still in bed. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] Why? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] Because otherwise Mr Bush s voters will get terribly impatient and may decide not to vote for him. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] But will people be killed, Daddy? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] Nobody you know, darling. Just foreign people. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] Can I watch it on television? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] Only if Mr Bush says you can. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] And afterwards, will everything be normal again? Nobody will do anything horrid any more? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] Hush child, and go to sleep. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Last Friday a friend of mine in California drove to his local supermarket with a sticker on his car saying: Peace is also Patriotic . It was gone by the time he d finished shopping. [/FONT]
[CENTER][CENTER][FONT=Arial]Copyright 2003 Times Newspapers Ltd[/FONT][/CENTER]
[/CENTER]
Apparently John le Carré can't remember the war that has been going on in America since the 1960s, the war on poverty. We've been losing that war ever since it was declared, and now the United States as a whole is impoverished. We've actually been going crazy since the early 20th century when the progressives started making small changes that are now so implanted that it may be too late to survive.
Right and Obamacare is just another step in trying to keep the peasants alive after we've used them up, instead of letting nature take it's course and returning them to the soil, as god intended.
Ridiculous, do we call the Vet for hens that stop laying, cows that stop milking, mules that stop pulling? Of course not, they then become [STRIKE]soylent[/STRIKE] soup or renderings.
I really cant even read that shit anymore. Its a losing battle. And depressing as hell. The United States will get what it deserves, just like Carlin joked about.
It is a war on the entire political culture, on the arrogance of politicians, on their slipperiness and lack of principle, on their endless deal making and compromises.
And when the politicians say to the people protesting: 'But we're doing this for you', that just makes it worse. In fact, that seems to be what makes them angriest of all.
The beginning of the end...
[YOUTUBE]hV-05TLiiLU[/YOUTUBE]
It doesn't matter Classic. That silly hen has been showing her foolishness for years, but she will be re-elected by the San Francisco libs who smoked their brains in the 60s.
Wow - I must have been really tired last night - I have NO IDEA why I posted that.
Sorry.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell summed up his plan to National Journal: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
Read more:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/44311.html#ixzz14K5BSaWy... and Obama's is to get re-elected. big whoop.
... and Obama's is to get re-elected. big whoop.
The only way Obama can get re-elected is to do what the voters want. The only way for the repubicans to make Obama a one term president is to prohibit Obama from doing what the voters want. In other words, the repubicans want to screw the voters.
... and Obama's is to get re-elected. big whoop.
Cite, please.
“You know, there is a tendency in Washington to believe our job description, of elected officials, is to get reelected. That’s not our job description,” Obama said. “Our job description is to solve problems and to help people.”
and
“I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.”
ABC
I'm sure Obama would love to have a second term, and I would be very surprised if he didn't run a second time, but he's at least giving lip service to the idea that his focus is not on getting re-elected.
Cite, please.
no need. Thats the #1 goal of any politician - to remain employed.
lip service
I agree with that part. and I don't disagree that what you first quoted him as saying SHOULD be true, but I'm too pessimistic about politicians to actually believe it.
He's been talking every day for two years, and you can't find such a cite. glatt finds one that says exactly the opposite. You latch onto glatt's opinion "lip service" as congruent to your own.
That's ok, it's sad to see you're so cynical and pessimistic that you let your prejudice close your mind. I hope you feel better soon.
You're wrong, by the way. Not all politicians have reelection as their highest priority. There are some, a lot, that believe that doing good is more important than getting re-elected. These people also know that to govern, one must first be elected. But being elected is a means to an end, to govern. Don't despair.
There's a significant difference between the president and all the other politicians.
The president, once elected (or assumes the office through other means), is set for life. Other politicians leaving office, still have to whore to corporate interests, or foreign entities, to make a living.
Right and Obamacare is just another step in trying to keep the peasants alive after we've used them up, instead of letting nature take it's course and returning them to the soil, as god intended.
Ridiculous, do we call the Vet for hens that stop laying, cows that stop milking, mules that stop pulling? Of course not, they then become [strike]soylent[/strike] soup or renderings.
I guess if you feel people are the same as farm animals, you would enjoy Obamacare, until it came to your turn on the rendering truck.
I understand your opinion and beliefs, but I still maintain mine as well. Agree to disagree.
Ron Burgundy: Discovered by the Germans in 1904, they named it San Diego, which of course in German means a whale's vagina.
Veronica Corningstone: No, there's no way that's correct.
Ron Burgundy: I'm sorry, I was trying to impress you. I don't know what it means. I'll be honest, I don't think anyone knows what it means anymore. Scholars maintain that the translation was lost hundreds of years ago.
Veronica Corningstone: Doesn't it mean Saint Diego?
Ron Burgundy: No. No.
Veronica Corningstone: No, that's - that's what it means. Really.
Ron Burgundy: Agree to disagree.
I guess if you feel people are the same as farm animals, you would enjoy Obamacare, until it came to your turn on the rendering truck.
Yes, spud, anything you say.:rolleyes:
spud drank the Kool-Aid a looooooong time ago. bye bye spud.
This post is full of Kool-Ade, but I refuse to drink it. It smells like bullshit.
... but it tastes so sweet. :)
Personally I prefer Kool-AID, not that knock off shit kool-ADE. See your problem spud is the wrong brand.
My brand doesn't smell like BS, yours does. Don't know about the taste, I've never been foolish enough to drink it.
Doesn't matter how you spell yours, it's still the same old shit.
Sugar coated lies always tastes better than the truth.
Gonna have to disagree with you there B...
This is America, your choice, enjoy.
My brand doesn't smell like BS, yours does.
As an avowed extremist, you are constantly posting cheapshots at those who expose your agenda. Hate is a factor so common to extremists. Who do we hate this month? Last month it was all Muslims.
You owe morethanpretty an apology. That means you will not post hate. As an extremist, hate justifies anything. Cheapshots are what you use to prove overt lies. So you will not apologize.
So, are Jews scheduled to be hated next month? Or does your political party warn you who you will be hating next?
My brand doesn't smell like BS, yours does. Don't know about the taste, I've never been foolish enough to drink it.
Doesn't matter how you spell yours, it's still the same old shit.
So you admit that you drink someone's kool-aid or ade. Really smell and taste have nothing to do with quality sometimes.
Personally I don't drink the powdered sugary drinks at all.
I found this article interesting, even if it is from cracked.com:
6 Things You Won't Believe Can Brainwash You On Election Day
First, it was morethanpretty who gave the cheap shot. However,
TW is right for once. I need to apologize to morethanpretty. Her Kool-Aid isn't full of BS, its ingredient is a slow death.
But TW is wrong on everything else he says, because I have no political party to teach me what to think. But then, unlike you TW, I was never foolish enough to think Obama was a libertarian. I don't know who gives you your marching orders or talking points, and I don't care. As far as I know, you're the only one who believes them.
First, it was morethanpretty who gave the cheap shot. However,
TW is right for once. I need to apologize to morethanpretty. Her Kool-Aid isn't full of BS, its ingredient is a slow death.
But TW is wrong on everything else he says, because I have no political party to teach me what to think. But then, unlike you TW, I was never foolish enough to think Obama was a libertarian. I don't know who gives you your marching orders or talking points, and I don't care. As far as I know, you're the only one who believes them.
Cheap-shot? It was a
joke. Your perceptions are way off.
Personally I don't give a rat's ass about you. You're clearly entrenched in your beliefs, so why try discussing with you? You don't even seem to have basic debate skills so it wouldn't even be a mental exercise.
After re-reading some of these posts, it seems it was Bri who did the first Kool-Aid reference, but it was just embellished by MTP. My apology only for totally blaming MTP for the insult.
I just heard this was all a joke. Well foolish meI thought it was more insults. Well I guess this whole thread must be a joke too. Ha ha. Good bye.
. . . I'm sure the armed forces were suddenly appreciated a whole lot more and that has faded now.
They were, and it hasn't. Admittedly, I live in a Navy town and drop in on the local American Legion post at the other end of town fairly regularly.
But even old NavVets like me, long out of the service, are getting "Thank you for your service" and a handshake, at random times and places around town.
Bush certainly squandered that quite spectacularly, when he invaded Iraq and tried to equate support for that to patriotism.
Let's see: destruction of unfreedom -- happened when Saddam went fugitive, was later captured, and later hanged. Check.
Replacement of unfree social order with a democratic one. Check. (Corruption problems? Common in Third World countries. Undesirable, the same way measles are undesirable. Not necessarily lethal to the body politic, nor necessarily a reduction thereof, is it?)
And is not liberty a birthright of mankind, attributable to God if you're a believer, however weakly?
Don't sweat the patriotism angle: this was obedience to God, as Ben Franklin put it lo these many years ago.
And
some people -- if they really are people and not some kind of possessed meatpuppets --
object to that. But even old NavVets like me, long out of the service, are getting "Thank you for your service" and a handshake, at random times and places around town.
You still wearing the uniform?
Maybe he is just showing off his tatoo.
You still wearing the uniform?
Oh dear, Bruce. Was NavVet an unfamiliar term? Means Navy veteran. You hear recruiters using it mostly. 1977-86. You do seem to have missed the "long out of uniform" phrase.
My Navy retiree wife has more tats than I do. Which is easy, since I haven't any. She thinks it would be cool if I did get one. She got all two of 'em after she retired.
Oh fuck you, I know what navvet is.
...getting "Thank you for your service" and a handshake, at random times and places around town.
How the fuck do they know if you're not wearing your uniform, or telling of your thrilling peacetime sagas.
In the telling. Do I need to spell everything out for you? I suppose I do; had you taken the oath of service and worn the uniform, you'd understand these matters exactly.
Oh, so they realize you're a vet but don't realize you're a dick until after the handshake?
I mean, I thank vets all the time, but not if they're dicks.
Oh, so they realize you're a vet but don't realize you're a dick until after the handshake?
I mean, I thank vets all the time, but not if they're dicks.
I'm starting to think that UG is a leftwing shill set up to piss people off with the right.
No one could be that bad at promoting their side.
The question is which side of
Poe's Law he is on.
The question is which side of Poe's Law he is on.
I had never heard of Poe's Law, and learned something new today !
It is an
interesting description for the behaviors of some people, especially the ones who are "totally bonkers"
Thank you, HM.
Gentlemen, I am a voice of adult thought around here. Adult thinking sounds like me. If you are going to insist on behaving and sounding like subadult imbeciles, how do you think you're going to be treated? Should you be treated in some other fashion?
Huh.
I hadn't realized we were running low on condescension.
Full up now, though. Thanks!
Gentlemen, I am a voice of adult thought around here.
No, no you're not. We're mostly adults, majority rules.... you just missed the people skills boat and fashioned yourself as you feel adults should be from whatever bizarre material you watched in your formative years ...Gone With The Wind, maybe? You're truly insane with delusions of grandeur among other issues. Amazing you weren't kicked out of the navy. Or were you?
"You'd rather live with that silly little fool who can't open her mouth except to say "yes" or "no" and raise a passel of mealy-mouthed brats just like her "
Yup, my money's on GWTW. You should have picked Rhett as your model, though.
Adult thinking sounds like me. If you are going to insist on behaving and sounding like subadult imbeciles, ... etc
Classic UG.
So...basically, all adults sound like you. And if they don't sound like you then they are not adults.
Sticks are brown. This is brown. Therefore this is a stick.
Classic UG.
:eek: ... you've been doing some DNA splicing!
No, no you're not. We're mostly adults, majority rules.... you just missed the people skills boat and fashioned yourself as you feel adults should be from whatever bizarre material you watched in your formative years ...Gone With The Wind, maybe? You're truly insane with delusions of grandeur among other issues. Amazing you weren't kicked out of the navy. Or were you?
"You'd rather live with that silly little fool who can't open her mouth except to say "yes" or "no" and raise a passel of mealy-mouthed brats just like her "
Yup, my money's on GWTW. You should have picked Rhett as your model, though.
Not even UG deserves this. Why do you go way off your rocker just to be ugly? Attacking someone's wife,kids?? wtf
Hey skysidhe--
That is a quote from the movie "Gone With The Wind", (GWTW). It is in context with the rest of monster's comment, in that she's suggesting that UG's .... attitudes were influenced by the characters in the movie. It is not an attack on his wife or kids, though she does score a touch with Scarlett.
She is a conceited narcissist; it is an apt comparison.
<strike>/end captain obvious</strike>
/end captain pedantic
Betta?
Wasn't captain obvious to me either. I thought the same as Sky.
I also agree with you on this part.
She is a conceited narcissist; it is an apt comparison.
ETA - OH wait, you were talking about Scarlett weren't you? lol unintended, but funny.
I can't say as i immediately recognised the quote. But the fact it was in quotation marks did suggest it was a quote and not Monster's own words to UG.
Hey sycophantic moron # 1: BigV meant Scarlett.
Hey sycophantic moron # 2: No matter how hard you try, UG will probably not sleep with either you or crassic. Now, do we really also need to point out your recent meltdown and subsequent screaming at 3 Dwellars?
Pitiful how you two glom on to anything UG and his ilk say about anyone who is on your vendetta list. Little dogs in tall grass: what are the cool kids doing?
I'd cry of inner shame were I either of you two.
;)
PS Nice late edit, Mr Accuser of Calling People Out on Late Edits. Piti (wait for it) ful.
Now why don't you find someone else's ass to ride? Ride mine, I'm only here to tell you that you suck, anyway.
:lol:
I'm laughing at you.
edit- Mostly, I'll try to forget about you, and yours. You'll both ruin my Christmas cheer.
You two (Shaw & Monster) go right ahead and make the world a better place ,in your own way, for your particular statures,I see what that is.
From now on,I'll ignore you and your bosom buddy, for my happiness sake, not yours. :)
:nuts:
Ok darlin', you just go about the good work of
Feeding America
as is the wont of any pious, humble, and caring person such as yourself.
:rotflol:
I'm with sky. You pop back in just to be a bitch and attack someone about something you have nothing to do with.
Gee thanks. Way to add to the discussion - not.
You're welcome. I forgot how much fun this is. :)
And you, grand man, just sit around like a spider waiting for someone's comment to hop on to, being bereft of any original ideas or thoughts: even when it comes to who you want to insult. You hate monster, UG and monster have a tiff, you blow UG (and you're ALWAYS with sky, because you share a mutual hatred.) You are so very transparent.
UG, sweetie, your cult is going to SUCK!
Riled up yet?
Oh, yeah, and I did see your sweet post where you almost forgot you hate me and asked me to come back (before you deleted it.) It was very sweet, though full of the sugary lies so often perpetuated by you and your kind.
I can't believe I ruined this fine discussion...what page was that on again?
More like I prefer to confine any combats to their original arena, rather than dueling throughout all the forums on the site -- that's too jerkish for me. There are things you write I find variously agreeable, and for clarity's sake I will say so as they come up. There are others I oppose with every fiber my being has and every value I've got.
I've initiated threads before. If you missed them, too bad.
I tiff with monster from time to time. Hatred's not what I feel, though.
As for your understanding of "my kind," I put it to you that it is scant, third-hand, and pretty much off. And I can't remember deleting a post here, come to that. Sugary lies? Not from me.
I hadn't realized we were running low on condescension.
Full up now, though. Thanks!
A reliable sign that I think you're being stupid enough to embarrass yourself. When you're not coming up to scratch, I condescend to you and make stupid hurt.
If you do not enjoy this, you know what to do.
The only way Obama can get re-elected is to do what the voters want. The only way for the repubicans to make Obama a one term president is to prohibit Obama from doing what the voters want. In other words, the repubicans want to screw the voters.
This is multiply erroneous. Let us count up the ways:
1) The voters do not want to do Socialism.
2) Obama does.
3) The Republicans are there to stop Obama from doing the Socialism the voters do not want.
4) Buttscrewing the fools who don't appreciate the Republic, capitalism, or the strong dollar is not bad either for the electorate or the Republic in which it dwells. Uncomfortable for fools, though.
5) What the Republicans hope to do therefore is protective of
my proper interests. Which are, I think, consonant with the good of the Republic.
So once again, unclean Spexx, your rabid bigotries both discredit you, and disorder your thoughts. Radar has the same problem, you know. Is he the company you want to keep? The example you would follow?
More like I prefer to confine any combats to their original arena, rather than dueling throughout all the forums on the site -- that's too jerkish for me. There are things you write I find variously agreeable, and for clarity's sake I will say so as they come up. There are others I oppose with every fiber my being has and every value I've got.
I've initiated threads before. If you missed them, too bad.
I tiff with monster from time to time. Hatred's not what I feel, though.
As for your understanding of "my kind," I put it to you that it is scant, third-hand, and pretty much off. And I can't remember deleting a post here, come to that. Sugary lies? Not from me.
Silly wabbit...
That post was for crass, not you. You just got caught in it because of all the glomming crass does.
Re-read it and know that the only part for you was that your cult is going to SUCK. I have seen your initial struggling membership, and it does not bode well for future advances. You can't have ALL the brain power in your imagined land of the free and the brave, can you? Surely you need a couple other people, at the very least, who can master skills beyond slobbering all over you and placing the correct part in each widget?
But you, UG, with all your superiority...well, I just think you're the grooviest! :rasta: Though I agree with very little you say, I admire your original thought and your ability to form complete and eloquent sentences.
This is multiply erroneous. Let us count up the ways:
1) The voters do not want to do Socialism.
2) Obama does.
BUZZZZZZZZZZZ Well this is your classic "straw man" fallacy that UG depends upon so well. Instead of arguing Spexx's point, he creates a straw man "Socialism" to argue against. It's only Socialism because he calls it that; what Obama has done is so far short of actual Socialism that it would be unrecognizable by that term in an *serious* discussion.
3) The Republicans are there to stop Obama from doing the Socialism the voters do not want.
This is a continuance of the straw man, but it is always helpful to remind everyone that only 2 short years ago the Republicans were spending like drunken investment bankers in a strip club where the strippers were wearing guaranteed notes for thongs.
True intellectualism requires true intellectual honesty. I will recognize it in you, UG, when I see it.
A reliable sign that I think you're being stupid enough to embarrass yourself. When you're not coming up to scratch, I condescend to you and make stupid hurt.
If you do not enjoy this, you know what to do.
Yes, yes I do.
When I am being condescended to, I consider the source. If it is one that is worthy of my respect, then I reflect on my own behavior and attitudes, searching for what is in me that warranted such communication. You imply with your remarks that I am being stupid, stupid enough to embarrass myself.
This is multiply erroneous:
1 -- I am not stupid. Nor are my posts here evidence of stupid. I would agree that engaging you in this kind of serious fashion is borderline stupid, and quixotic at best.
2 -- In practically every area where we have social intercourse, but most especially regarding politics and human relations, you are not a source worthy of my respect. This makes my self check very quick, practically moot. Your remarks do not hurt me. Your opinion of me is a matter of monumental indifference to me. You have show over a very long time that you do not care for me, or for the other dwellars here. It is precisely because of this long established behavior that your rebukes like this do not sting. All of your comments like this therefore have have no corrective power. They rise only to the level of irritating noise.
So, you are right, I do know what to do. I will filter out such noise so I can continue to focus on the communication here, offered by those dwellars that are worthy of my respect.
Ok, I admit it. I miss Bush. I think the democrats have made things worse. In fact, I think most of America feels the same way. How do you feel??
Maybe Laura Bush could become President and just let GW take care of the country from behind the scenes.
Adult thinking sounds like me.
:speechls:
See, Rich? Right there is where your problem is.
UT, the people who insist that the socialistic features of Democratic Party policymaking and of Obama's vision in particular are somehow non-socialistic do not seem to really know what socialism is. They persist in a denial not supported by evidence.
And repeating to yourself that Glenn Beck is "not a credible source, not a credible source, not a..." shall not win the argument, nor diminish the statist and socialist features of Dem Party policymaking in the least. Democrats out of power is what will manage that, particularly with libertarians and libertarian-leaning Republicans in power.
If Glenn Beck isn't going to do it for you, then hew to Mark Levin. He's got a legal background in constitutional law. The Donkey Party drones that call in from time to time can't lay a glove on the guy. Yet somehow, they believe their road has virtue to it... somewhere.
Quite the dodge, UG, but I was talking about you and your own intellectual honesty, not the intellectual honesty of "the people who insist..."
UT, the people who insist that the socialistic features of Democratic Party policymaking and of Obama's vision in particular are somehow non-socialistic do not seem to really know what socialism is.
Oh please do tell, wise one. What is socialism?
Socialism
An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. The class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said ok, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism.
All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little.. The second Test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F.
The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for anyone else. All failed to their great surprise. The professor told them that socialism would ultimately fail, not because the harder to succeed the greater the reward, but when a government takes all the reward away; no one will try or succeed.
Socialism isn't about removing rewards.
There is a great distinction between 'grades' and 'money'/'ownership of the means of production'. Grades are not necessary to exchange for shelter, food and warmth. Nor did giving them a mass grade in anyway place the means of acquiring those grades (production) into their hands.
[eta] My own personal opinion is that those things necessary to survival and basic human dignity should not be seen as 'rewards'. They are a starting point.
Arguing the finer points of socialism with UG is like trying to discuss atheism with the Spanish Inquisition. :thepain:
As an aside, I am amazed how we characterize socialism as "da debbil' while at the same time allowing our economy to become ever more dependent on the whim of communist China. Everyone tries to excuse this by saying that China has become "capitalist" or more like us. Actually, the US is becoming more like China. Our government pours money into failing corporations and subsidizes financial entities that have acted to the detriment of the country, and politicians pass these actions off as sound economics.
The Chinese government gives loans at low or no interest to Chinese corporations which allow them to flood the world with cheap products. Chinese manufacturing is heavily subsidized, and the Communist system allows workers to get by on such a low wage that no capitalist country can compete with it.
As an aside, I am amazed how we characterize socialism as "da debbil' while at the same time allowing our economy to become ever more dependent on the whim of communist China.
Because it isn't about socialism or communism. The fatcats only ask themselves if it makes them fatter. If it makes them fatter, of course it's good ol' American capitalism.
Yeah, well I'm gonna trot this out again, we live in a socialist country, All the corporate risk is socialized and the profit is privatized.
Socialism only for corporations is ok, but don't cut the hoi polloi any slack
[eta] My own personal opinion is that those things necessary to survival and basic human dignity should not be seen as 'rewards'. They are a starting point.
But now don't you think you are adjusting the model to fix your own personal opinion? Because any idealist could put anything they want into that opinion as you define it. If I think some form of person transportation is necessary to my survival then someone else should provide it to me. And if I don't think I make enough money to get those things that I think I should have, for what ever reason, then someone else (the government) should provide it for me. And the government should be available in selected cases to do that. But for the majority of situations it should be a stop gap, not a means to an end.
Apparently I have been drinking too much coffee (the gateway drug). Still, this is an excellent statement.
Arguing the finer points of socialism with UG is like trying to discuss atheism with the Spanish Inquisition.
Why? Because Glenn Beck said it.
But now don't you think you are adjusting the model to fix your own personal opinion? Because any idealist could put anything they want into that opinion as you define it. If I think some form of person transportation is necessary to my survival then someone else should provide it to me. And if I don't think I make enough money to get those things that I think I should have, for what ever reason, then someone else (the government) should provide it for me. And the government should be available in selected cases to do that. But for the majority of situations it should be a stop gap, not a means to an end.
Try being unable to afford a car and living in a town with no public transportation. Uncle Sam doesn't owe me or anyone else a car, but some sort of public transit is invaluable to the population at large for any number of reasons.
Various groups still adhere blindly to the dogma that the US is the land of opportunity and anyone who works hard enough can obtain entrance to the upper middle class, no matter what their background. Certainly, its possible to work hard and live better here than in many other less fortunate countries.
But the "land of opportunity - fields of waving grain" construct died with the passing of the 19th century. In the 1800's an immigrant could land in New York and make his way West to claim 160 acres of land at little or no cost, work hard, and create a new life for himself. No more.
Today our resources are finite and our society is stratified. A child brought up in the semi-war zone of the urban housing projects simply does not have access to the quality of education and opportunities that a child of upper middle class parents living in a gated community does. I continue to be amazed that there are people who argue otherwise.
I don't expect the government to provide me with silk underware and a 60 inch flatscreen TV. However, a society which provides it children with a good education, basic health care and the food to mature into healthy adults is making a very wise investment that will pay off in terms of increased worker productivity and greater economic well-being.
If you don't believe this, take a visit to the city of Receife (pop one million plus) in northern Brazil where I once lived. Only children of the well to do go to school. The rest run in packs on the streets, always hungry, often suffering chronic disease, and poorly clothed. Girls 10 years of age or younger resort to prostitution - the only work available. The Brazilian government either cannot or will not intervene on the behalf of the country's children or its adult citizens. If you want a road to your house, you build it yourself. If you want security for your home or neighborhood, you hire private thugs. Its a libertarian's dream, but its not mine.
Try being unable to afford a car and living in a town with no public transportation. Uncle Sam doesn't owe me or anyone else a car, but some sort of public transit is invaluable to the population at large for any number of reasons.
So isit a Right that you are owed to some form of public transportation? The majority of cities and towns in the US do not have one. The days of a RR station for every city and town are long gone.
Various groups still adhere blindly to the dogma that the US is the land of opportunity and anyone who works hard enough can obtain entrance to the upper middle class, no matter what their background. Certainly, its possible to work hard and live better here than in many other less fortunate countries.
But the "land of opportunity - fields of waving grain" construct died with the passing of the 19th century. In the 1800's an immigrant could land in New York and make his way West to claim 160 acres of land at little or no cost, work hard, and create a new life for himself. No more.
How would you explain the success of the Chinese or Korean grocery store in many black dominated areas of the inner city? How about the success of the Cuban-Americans in Miami?
Today our resources are finite and our society is stratified. A child brought up in the semi-war zone of the urban housing projects simply does not have access to the quality of education and opportunities that a child of upper middle class parents living in a gated community does. I continue to be amazed that there are people who argue otherwise.
I would agree completely. And the sooner that we all recognize that society is stratified the sooner we can stop with all the class warfare and attempts at wealth redistribution.
I don't expect the government to provide me with silk underware and a 60 inch flatscreen TV. However, a society which provides it children with a good education, basic health care and the food to mature into healthy adults is making a very wise investment that will pay off in terms of increased worker productivity and greater economic well-being.
I would agree. To bad we don't live in a utopia. Because we have been throwing money at those issues and they have improved marginally at best.
[quotet]If you don't believe this, take a visit to the city of Receife (pop one million plus) in northern Brazil where I once lived. Only children of the well to do go to school. The rest run in packs on the streets, always hungry, often suffering chronic disease, and poorly clothed. Girls 10 years of age or younger resort to prostitution - the only work available. The Brazilian government either cannot or will not intervene on the behalf of the country's children or its adult citizens. If you want a road to your house, you build it yourself. If you want security for your home or neighborhood, you hire private thugs. Its a libertarian's dream, but its not mine.[/QUOTE]I have been to plenty of Third World countries. Thank God we don't live in one.
Public transit, universal education, fire and police protection, etc. are not rights. They are sound investments that a society makes in its own well being.
Those who benefit from our current system, yet complain about paying for it suffer from a narcissistic world view at best. "I've done great. The rest of you are on your own."
Immigrants from other countries who make good here are by definition largely members of the middle class in their own countries and/or have useful connections in the US. Our immigration laws ensure this.
The spunky oriental immigrant who hits the big time in the ghetto is largely a myth. And for everyone like him, there is a woman from Thailand who comes here and opens up a "massage parlor' where sex is sold in the back room. She eventually becomes caught up in the legal system and costs the local taxpayers thousands.
Individual annecdotes are a dime a dozen. They are fun to relate, but useless for implementing policy.
The term "throwing money at" is shop worn and was a questionable analogy from the start. Schools in poor and rural areas have been underfunded for decades if not forever. No tycoons from the exclusive side of town come through and throw dimes at kids in the ghetto. I have yet to see a wealthy matron from Denver's posh Cherrycreek neighborhood travel out here to the small and very distressed town of Paradox, Colorado to endow a new school library filled with comic books.
The only thing Congress throws money at are special interests (wealthy campaign contributors) and its own boondoggles.
As for the third world, the US is working on joining it.
Public transit, universal education, fire and police protection, etc. are not rights. They are sound investments that a society makes in its own well being.
At what cost and to what end?
Those who benefit from our current system, yet complain about paying for it suffer from a narcissistic world view at best. "I've done great. The rest of you are on your own."
And like others here, I hear another cry along the lines of class envy. I do agree with what you are saying, they should charge higher rider fees to make it work better.
Immigrants from other countries who make good here are by definition largely members of the middle class in their own countries and/or have useful connections in the US. Our immigration laws ensure this.
I agree. Yet those who live here and have all the same advantages and in fact more advantages and connections still can't do as well. Why do you think that is?
The spunky oriental immigrant who hits the big time in the ghetto is largely a myth. And for everyone like him, there is a woman from Thailand who comes here and opens up a "massage parlor' where sex is sold in the back room. She eventually becomes caught up in the legal system and costs the local taxpayers thousands.
Yet they are making a dollar and completely support themselves. I would support the legalization of prostitution like it is in NV.
Individual annecdotes are a dime a dozen. They are fun to relate, but useless for implementing policy.
Damm right. Which is why I am tired of hearing the politicians telling me another story about "Betty Johnson from Bumbfuck USA" and how because of one party or the other has been screwed by the system. It only contributes to more class envy and warfare.
The term "throwing money at" is shop worn and was a questionable analogy from the start.
BS, it is not about some "wealthy matron" tossing dimes, it is about the billions wasted by state and federal governments on throwing money at failing schools.
The only thing Congress throws money at are special interests (wealthy campaign contributors) and its own boondoggles.
As for the third world, the US is working on joining it.
Agreed and agreed.
And like others here, I hear another cry along the lines of class envy.
:eek:
You mean because I'm currently on disability, my viewpoint is skewed? My eyes have certainly been opened due to the events of the past 10 years, I'll grant you that. But I had a solid middle class upbringing, was fortunate enough to earn an advanced college degree and spent most of my career in a professional position. Other than a brief flirtation with your pal, Ayn Rand, at age 17, I am a life long humanist. I owe my outlook to intelligence, enlightened self-interest, and compassion. :p:
You mean because I'm currently on disability, my viewpoint is skewed?
Absolutely not!
My eyes have certainly been opened due to the events of the past 10 years, I'll grant you that. But I had a solid middle class upbringing, was fortunate enough to earn an advanced college degree and spent most of my career in a professional position. Other than a brief flirtation with your pal, Ayn Rand, at age 17, I am a life long humanist. I owe my outlook to intelligence, enlightened self-interest, and compassion. :p:
Congrats, and you're posts reflect your depth of experience. This was nothing personal. It was a comment on what people's perceptions are about the role of the federal government and how much they should take from others to support bloated and inefficient systems that continually fail the electorate.
....A child brought up in the semi-war zone of the urban housing projects simply does not have access to the quality of education and opportunities that a child of upper middle class parents living in a gated community does.....
But it does provide a place to dump sex-offenders. ;)
Turning to Sam's particular situation and considering a fix: how big and flat is that town, there on the "Edge of the Land of Enchantment?" Bicycles are easier to afford than cars -- and give practicable mobility to about a 15- to 20-mile radius, coupled with a flexibility no mass transit could possibly match, which taken together I think somewhat shrinks the field for grousing and bitching. But if that disability thing means legs no good or eyes not so good, a bicycle is still no solution -- dang.
Speaking of bitching: tw, the man who categorically despises and damns Glenn Beck is a man who categorically despises and damns the stuff and breath of life itself. Beck believes in capitalism, hence in life. You? No, not so much. Never did, AFAIK. That's why ol' Glenn is a happier man than you are.
Maybe he's happier because they're paying him 30 or 40 million a year for his dramatics.
When I am being condescended to, I consider the source. If it is one that is worthy of my respect, then I reflect on my own behavior and attitudes, searching for what is in me that warranted such communication. You imply with your remarks that I am being stupid, stupid enough to embarrass myself.
This is multiply erroneous:
1 -- I am not stupid. Nor are my posts here evidence of stupid. I would agree that engaging you in this kind of serious fashion is borderline stupid, and quixotic at best.
2 -- In practically every area where we have social intercourse, but most especially regarding politics and human relations, you are not a source worthy of my respect. This makes my self check very quick, practically moot. Your remarks do not hurt me. Your opinion of me is a matter of monumental indifference to me. You have show over a very long time that you do not care for me, or for the other dwellars here. It is precisely because of this long established behavior that your rebukes like this do not sting. All of your comments like this therefore have have no corrective power. They rise only to the level of irritating noise.
So, you are right, I do know what to do. I will filter out such noise so I can continue to focus on the communication here, offered by those dwellars that are worthy of my respect.
Well, V, after a couple of days for thought, this is what I've got.
There is no obligation upon me to respect that which is stupid. There is instead an obligation to challenge it. Showing certain of the more mulish anticonservative bigots the error of their thinking is sometimes like explaining anal sex to an echidna: certain referents seem to be wholly lacking.
It is not the persons, in essence, that I disdain, but the collectivist, aye socialist, ideals and the stupid ideas the ideals engender which I disparage, deprecate, blast and damn severally and collectively. I am a man of freedom, and unfreedom is a worthless abomination which helps millions to stunted lives and premature deaths. He who would reduce liberty is your enemy and mine, and your children's also, regardless of his -- or Michelle O's -- intentions at the outset. It is a thing that turns Earth into Camazotz.
The only known way to introduce socialism into the social order of the United States is to insist at every turn that it is not socialism. How many here are buying that denial? Does that sound a) smart, or b)not smart?
Taking me seriously involves taking virtue seriously. V is telling me he has great difficulty with taking me seriously, apparently because he finds me abrasive, and I am not going to deny being abrasive for a moment. He may also say abrasiveness erodes virtue. Mm -- it could if it's used wrongly. Too, a virtuous life, value given to virtue, a virtuous philosophy of life and being -- these are things that reproach those pseudosophisticates who think a good life can be lived without virtue, on the grounds that virtue is "not modern, not with-it."
Well, I hang out on another BBS, the Armour Archive, where a good many 21st-century people make a big thing, and a good thing, of virtue. They are the sort of people who would not seek in the State a surrogate parent. That's a thing which is bad for both parents and state -- and it bleeds the economy to anemia.
V, I have never thought you stupid, nor warped like two or three Dwellars I could name. I do have to work to keep you and xoxoBruce straight, so similar are your writing styles and philosophies -- I hope never to mix up which of you said what, and I figure the two of you would get along ever so well on a long road trip or a Carnival Lines cruise. I have held for years the opinion your heart stays in the right place, even if your head does not always. I hold that belief now.
You should not confuse an inclination to pout at me for annoying you with a matter of respect, though. There, you're kidding yourself. You can neither diminish me nor build up yourself by sneering. If you flee from me, you cut yourself off from something good that I have and you may never have sought: the pursuit of that virtue which makes a life worth the having lived it.
Maybe he's happier because they're paying him 30 or 40 million a year for his dramatics.
Or put another way, well pleased he can command that in the infotainment market -- and out of which he employs staff also. But there's the dawning of self-worth that he speaks of often -- his road back up from the depths of alcoholism. It's a good thing, to hit bottom -- and not to stay there. He found drink ruined his mind and his soul. Coulda shot himself.
There is no opinion-show host that
doesn't engage in dramatics. They vary in degree, yes -- but when advocating, you must also persuade. That's sales: you must convey and transfer enthusiasm.
Oh drink did it, I wondered about that.
But now don't you think you are adjusting the model to fix your own personal opinion? Because any idealist could put anything they want into that opinion as you define it. If I think some form of person transportation is necessary to my survival then someone else should provide it to me. And if I don't think I make enough money to get those things that I think I should have, for what ever reason, then someone else (the government) should provide it for me. And the government should be available in selected cases to do that. But for the majority of situations it should be a stop gap, not a means to an end.
What you think is necessary to survival, and what can be shown/proved to be necessary to your survival are very different matters. As Sam pointed out: it is not government's job to provide each individual with a car. It is government's job to ensure that there is a functioning public transport system, accessible to all and with routes that aren't profitable given subsidies to make sure no one community is left unserved.
It is also not government's job to ensure that I personally have a PC in my house and a broadband connection. It is however, in my opinion, government's job to ensure that there are public terminals, in libraries for example, available to all. It is also government's job to ensure that all schoolchildren are given access to such technology in order that they are not disadvantaged by a lack of computer literacy.
To me, it seems obvious that it is in my nation's interest for as many people as possible to be able to participate in society and the economy. It is of social value that even the least resourced of us has a standard of living above and beyond abject and hopeless poverty. It is of economic value that those people who are at risk of being excluded from the economy altogether, be helped to retain an economic presence. So, for example, foodstamps make a lot less sense to me than a cash benefit payment which allows the recipient to 'spend' within the economy, without being effectively coralled into a closed and deeply uncompetetive, separate tier of that economy.
As a socialist, I believe in a very basic premise: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Now obviously, in practice life is not that simple. People are not that simple. People do not always do what is best for themselves, or the rest of us. And without an impetus to work, or contribute, good intentions eventually dissolve into selfishness. Badly handled, assistance can exacerbate distress, or sanction selfishness to the detriment of the whole.
At the end of the day it is a matter of balance and judegement. Weighing up the social and economic harm of having large swathes of underclass alienated from the mainstream of the economy and engaged instead in a kind of sub-economy, from which are drawn few or no taxes, and which carry little or no consumer weight. Essentially, weighing up the harm of allowing people and families to fail to such an extent that they are no longer able to function as effective members of society. At the same time, weighing up the social and economic harm of giving assistance, of sanctioning a self-selected exclusion from the active economy, by a few, in order to prevent the unwanted exclusion of a much greater group (imo).
Most western countries, the US included, have got a handle on the idea that they don't actually want large numbers of people starving on the streets. It is not desirable that we have children chasing tourists in the train stations, begging for coin. So, to varying degrees we implement safety nets. But because we wish to deter as many people as possible from seeking those safety nets, we make the assistance offered unpalatable and humiliating.
This seems a retrograde step to me. If the assistance on offer is unpalatable and humliating, then those who have no choice but to seek it for long periods can become psychologically damaged by the experience. Not only have they become excluded by circumstance from the economy, but they have also become excluded from mainstream society and culture. Far from encouraging greater levels of effort on their part, this is actually more likely to compound the problem: their life becomes demotivating, depressing, and deskilling. The ritual humilliations involved in accessing such assistance serve to damage self-confidence, increase the social gaps, and entrench the individual (and even whole families) in inactivty. It makes them less likely to get through an interview successfully, both because they are less able to finance jobsearch, travel, interview clothes and so on, but also because a lack of self-confidence and self-worth do not make for good interviews.
You said at one point in this discussion ( I think) that the answer is not to throw money at the problem. I see things a little differently. I see the past twenty-five years as a race to the bottom. Lower and lower benefits, harsher and harsher conditions, greater and greater levels of approbation. We have long since dispensed with the carrot and have been using bigger and bigger sticks. Yet, no matter how harsh we make life on welfare; no matter how humiliating we make the process; no matter how pitful the sum given; no matter how many people we exclude from assistance, the need has not diminished.
In the early 19th century, Britain altered its approach to dealing with poverty. Poor relief, once given to families out in the community, along with wage top-ups given to certain workers during periods of need (the speenhamland system) were scrapped. Instead relief would be given only through becoming an inmate in the workhouse. At the same time, those workhouses were deliberately made as terrible as possible. This was documented, in debates and letters, in which the main designers of the New Poor Law expressed the idea that, in order to ensure that the idle sought work and saw relief as an absolute last resort, it must be made as unpalatable as possible, that food should be sufficient for continued life, but not sufficient to remove hunger; that men and women should be separated, even if married, and children housed separately from their parents. They were given meaningless, body-breaking work and subjected to brutal regimes. Uniforms identified and dehumanised them in the same way as prisons do now.
It didn't solve the problem.
They chased the bottom: they never reached it.
It is government's job to ensure that there is a functioning public transport system, accessible to all and with routes that aren't profitable given subsidies to make sure no one community is left unserved.
That only works in high density areas. Financially impossible in this country. To run public transportation a hundred miles, to serve a hundred people, that may or may not use it on any given day, is out of the question.
*nods* I can see that rural transport might be more of a problem over there.
But you can see the principle. It's not about making sure everybody has everything they could want. It's about ensuring, as much as possible, that everybody has what they need to survive and has access to that which is needed to be a functioning member of society.
Yes I see that, and believe it or not, the necessities are available to every American. But not always in a dignified manner, which causes some to decline. Right now there are something like 10 to 20 million children that are eligible for free health care, but not getting it because their parents haven't signed them up.
Yah. We have a similar problem with some of the means tested benefits, especially those directed at older people. Which is one of the problems inherent in making assistance difficult and humiliating: often the people who most need that help are deterred from seeking it when they most need it and then end up becoming a bigger cost burden on the state, when they hit absolute crisis point or preventable health problems become acute enough to warrant emergency intervention.
One of the best things the labour government did (imo) was bring in the cold weather payments for anyone claiming incapacity benefit, disability allowance, or pension credits, and for anyone above a particular age (can't recall if it was 65 or 70). Payment was triggered any time the temperature dropped below freezing for 7 consecutive days. No need to claim: the cheque arrived by post automatically.
By attaching it to particular benefit types, and age bands, and making it automatic, the government made sure that the most vulnerable groups in society had some kind of response to an extended period of cold weather; and reduced drastically the number of pensioners who die of hypothermia every year in the UK.
Now that's counterproductive, the greater the number of elderly fatalities, the lower the cost of elderly benefits.
If the assistance on offer is unpalatable and humliating, then those who have no choice but to seek it for long periods can become psychologically damaged by the experience.
If they are socialized correctly, the same damage occurs if the assistance on offer is palatable and easy to receive. Productive cultures value productive work.
Turning to Sam's particular situation and considering a fix: how big and flat is that town, there on the "Edge of the Land of Enchantment?" Bicycles are easier to afford than cars -- and give practicable mobility to about a 15- to 20-mile radius, coupled with a flexibility no mass transit could possibly match, which taken together I think somewhat shrinks the field for grousing and bitching. But if that disability thing means legs no good or eyes not so good, a bicycle is still no solution -- dang.
Well, thank you for your concern UG! And, no a bicycle is not an option for me. Most of the time I can find a friend with a car to take me where-ever, and I pay them for their gas.
Yes I see that, and believe it or not, the necessities are available to every American. But not always in a dignified manner, which causes some to decline.
The programs are in place, but many of them are badly under-funded. For example, most cities have a two year plus wait for housing vouchers with no emergency assistance available. Congress now wants to cut this program which could turn thousands of people onto the streets - especially low income elderly and disabled.
Depending on the state you live in, food stamps can be woefully inadequate. Social Services treated me like a criminal when I went in to apply and ultimately awarded me $10.00/month. The administrative costs have to be more than that! (BTW, you are in fine form this morning, Bruce - love your one-liners!)
If they are socialized correctly, the same damage occurs if the assistance on offer is palatable and easy to receive. Productive cultures value productive work.
This is so true. Most of the people I know who are on disability would give anything to go back to work - it's a matter of self-respect as much as anything. It's a major defeat to have to go into the Social Security building and fill out that application. I used up all my savings and had nothing left before I could force myself to go down there.
Public assistance saved my family when I was growing up. I wonder how many other families it has saved in the last 40 years. You don't ever really hear about those numbers. Its much more attention grabbing to list the people who suck off the system and never move up.
Amen to that.
My daughter went on "welfare" after her dear hubby went on a confined vacation
for mistaking an undercover cop for a merchant.
She suddenly developed allergies that put an end to her career in the food industry.
She worked with the system to get training and got a job in the printing industry.
She's now an independent woman with 2 kids in college and 1 there next year.
Of course, while on welfare she was forced to drive a pink Cadillac. ;)
Of course, while on welfare she was forced to drive a pink Cadillac. ;)
That sounds like a good deterrent.
Public assistance saved my family when I was growing up. I wonder how many other families it has saved in the last 40 years.
That was the point of work done by the recent Nobel prize winner. Public assistance even results in a more productive economy and nation.
That was the point of work done by the recent Nobel prize winner. Public assistance even results in a more productive economy and nation.
This is the problem I have with the small government, anti-welfare approach. It isn't that I have a candyfloos vision of fairness, and am not able to conscience The Things Which Need To Be Done.
I would prefer a greater level of equity in society: but if it made economic sense for the nation to offer little or no public assistance, I could at least be reconciled to some of the argument on the grounds of the greater good. It doesn't make economic sense to me. Therefore I find it very hard to see why i should reconcile myself to the social harm such a system allows, and indeed to a degree depends upon.
Depending on the state you live in, food stamps can be woefully inadequate. Social Services treated me like a criminal when I went in to apply and ultimately awarded me $10.00/month. The administrative costs have to be more than that! (BTW, you are in fine form this morning, Bruce - love your one-liners!)
Sounds about par for Colorado. Also, to work for Labor Ready, you have to have had some kind of criminal activity or have been on some kind of govt assistance in the past (from what I can tell. My husband was denied back in May and that was all we could figure. They give you a big long personality test and they won't tell you why if you get denied.) Also, you have to wait a year to re-apply.
Sounds about par for Colorado. Also, to work for Labor Ready, you have to have had some kind of criminal activity or have been on some kind of govt assistance in the past (from what I can tell. My husband was denied back in May and that was all we could figure. They give you a big long personality test and they won't tell you why if you get denied.) Also, you have to wait a year to re-apply.
Isn't Labor Ready just a private temp employment outfit? :confused:
There are many temp labor places. Has your husband tried any of the others?
It's true, he has found a good paying job. Thanks, Shaw. :)
But in May, we were pretty desperate. My cleaning business was not paying the bills. Labor Ready appears to be private. I think we found out that they receive some kind of funding from the govt or maybe just that their projects are usually govt projects? He did apply at many temp agencies. We live in Western Weld County, though and there is a glut of labor in this area, it seems.
His new job is as a consultant for a state agency.
What you think is necessary to survival, and what can be shown/proved to be necessary to your survival are very different matters. As Sam pointed out: it is not government's job to provide each individual with a car. It is government's job to ensure that there is a functioning public transport system, accessible to all and with routes that aren't profitable given subsidies to make sure no one community is left unserved.
For every person served there will be an equal or greater number who think they are not being served. It is a snake eating it's tail.
It is also not government's job to ensure that I personally have a PC in my house and a broadband connection. It is however, in my opinion, government's job to ensure that there are public terminals, in libraries for example, available to all.
Paid for by whom?
It is also government's job to ensure that all schoolchildren are given access to such technology in order that they are not disadvantaged by a lack of computer literacy.
Paid for by whom, and who should be responsible to ensure that they are all computer literate?
To me, it seems obvious that it is in my nation's interest for as many people as possible to be able to participate in society and the economy.
Which is why I believe that in order for them to be invested they should all pay taxes at a the same percentage as everyone else, because if they are not invested they will treat such benefits as a right.
It is of social value that even the least resourced of us has a standard of living above and beyond abject and hopeless poverty. It is of economic value that those people who are at risk of being excluded from the economy altogether, be helped to retain an economic presence. So, for example, foodstamps make a lot less sense to me than a cash benefit payment which allows the recipient to 'spend' within the economy, without being effectively coralled into a closed and deeply uncompetetive, separate tier of that economy.
So they can spend it on cigs or alcohol or drugs?
As a socialist, I believe in a very basic premise: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
With that statement alone you could not support wealth redistribution than, because if my ability to pay for my needs exceeds yours than I really have no obligation to make sure that you have nappies.
Now obviously, in practice life is not that simple. People are not that simple. People do not always do what is best for themselves, or the rest of us. And without an impetus to work, or contribute, good intentions eventually dissolve into selfishness. Badly handled, assistance can exacerbate distress, or sanction selfishness to the detriment of the whole.
Which is a great argument for the continuation of controlled support in the form of food stamps and other directed support.
At the end of the day it is a matter of balance and judegement. Weighing up the social and economic harm of having large swathes of underclass alienated from the mainstream of the economy and engaged instead in a kind of sub-economy, from which are drawn few or no taxes, and which carry little or no consumer weight. Essentially, weighing up the harm of allowing people and families to fail to such an extent that they are no longer able to function as effective members of society.
Yes, they are Zero Liability Voters.
At the same time, weighing up the social and economic harm of giving assistance, of sanctioning a self-selected exclusion from the active economy, by a few, in order to prevent the unwanted exclusion of a much greater group (imo).
And further supporting a class of people who have no incentive to move ahead, move forward, or take responsibility for themselves, as long as the umbrella of the Government will always be there for them they don't have any incentive to do better by themselves. Right?
Most western countries, the US included, have got a handle on the idea that they don't actually want large numbers of people starving on the streets. It is not desirable that we have children chasing tourists in the train stations, begging for coin. So, to varying degrees we implement safety nets. But because we wish to deter as many people as possible from seeking those safety nets, we make the assistance offered unpalatable and humiliating.
Agreed. A good start to get people off the public dole.
This seems a retrograde step to me. If the assistance on offer is unpalatable and humliating, then those who have no choice but to seek it for long periods can become psychologically damaged by the experience. Not only have they become excluded by circumstance from the economy, but they have also become excluded from mainstream society and culture. Far from encouraging greater levels of effort on their part, this is actually more likely to compound the problem: their life becomes demotivating, depressing, and deskilling. The ritual humilliations involved in accessing such assistance serve to damage self-confidence, increase the social gaps, and entrench the individual (and even whole families) in inactivty. It makes them less likely to get through an interview successfully, both because they are less able to finance jobsearch, travel, interview clothes and so on, but also because a lack of self-confidence and self-worth do not make for good interviews.
Oh this is rich. So now it is no longer their fault and they have no responsibility for their own lives or predicament now it is the fault of and a failure of the government because they did not dig them out of the holes they put themselves in. BS. This where your, and the other socialists, thinking fails IMHO. It is not the role of government to do this. It is the responsibility of the individual.
You said at one point in this discussion ( I think) that the answer is not to throw money at the problem. I see things a little differently. I see the past twenty-five years as a race to the bottom. Lower and lower benefits, harsher and harsher conditions, greater and greater levels of approbation. We have long since dispensed with the carrot and have been using bigger and bigger sticks. Yet, no matter how harsh we make life on welfare; no matter how humiliating we make the process; no matter how pitful the sum given; no matter how many people we exclude from assistance, the need has not diminished.
And I see it differently. We have given more and more money to deal with the issues and they have not improved. The only place that I see a major failure in our society (the US) is that our mental health system has collapsed for the most seriously ill. Why? Because our inpatient mental health facilities have close and moved to a significantly underfunded out-patient system. This has been a dismal failure. The prison population is populated by an untreated group of mentally ill patients who lack the support to get treatment in the utopian model of out-patient care. Hence an increase in homelessness and a never ending cycle of movement into and out of the prison system and a life on the streets. This needs funding and attention to make a small but significant dent in the system of and cycle of dependence.