You know, after reading your other response above I see that your main objection to 'SJW' seems to be the whole getting people fired/doxed/etc thing rather than the whole being very vocal all the time about an issue which may or may not have legitimacy thing that others object to, and that I have your base position wrong (although your sig is certainly no help in discerning this information). Just further evidence that we need to dispense with 'SJW' and go back to talking about issues like reasonable people. Continuing to assume you believe the former, I think there is actually much good debate to be had on the fine line between deserved backlash for speech/actions and persecution. It is a tangle though, so if we are going to discuss it I'd prefer to go beyond hurling acronym labels and look at the merits of each case, but can't now - gotta pick up my son (correct, I am not a millenial).
Just wanted to clear that up - still think your original post is vile in the extreme. I think you just became my first 'foe'? How exciting!
You miss my point. Professional reactionaries/victims of any stripe are idiots. So are people who try reduce this behavior to a single word or acronym, then hurl that around as if everybody has already agreed in each case that they are indeed just being reactionary instead of having a legitimate beef. I think we agree on one of those statements.
My problem is with the absolutely ridiculous and disgusting comparison you have drawn to justify your argument. Now you have compounded that with the tired fallacy of thinking that because I am not A then I must be B. Argumentatively speaking your hole is getting deeper, and it kinda smells too.
Rolling for satire...critical miss!
I don't need to RTF-anything to know that 'SJW' is a useless term and that people using it should be thoroughly mocked until they decide to form an actual cogent thought. I think(?) we agree, but I honestly can't tell if you mis-read me or if you just replied to the wrong post.
A sjw is someone pushing progressive social politics in an unyielding, uncompromising way.
Ah, so now we come down to it. It seems then that it has nothing to do with the general concept of pushing politics in an unyielding, uncompromising way, which I think we can all agree makes you an insufferable asshole. It is just code for people who do so and with whom you do not agree, specifically those on the left. So, it is a not-so-clever little piece of Luntz-speak garbage that attempts to reframe a pejorative thought about a subjective opinion (I hate libtards) and turn it into a statement of objective fact (SJWs are bad. Who are SJWs and why are they bad? They are whoever I say they are, and they are bad because they disagree with me). Excellent, I'm glad we cleared that up. Carry on using it everyone - it doesn't in the least make you sound like an idiot when you lob it at somebody and sit back in satisfaction knowing that you have meticulously dismantled all of their arguments with your word of power.
Yes, because the persecution of the white male by 'SJWs' in today's society is totally a real, tangible thing that is ruining lives through systemic oppression and causing us to live in fear of physical violence and death. It is, isn't it? I mean I don't read the news much - I just assumed, based on how everybody is losing their goddamn minds over it. Otherwise no sane human would try to draw an analogy between being berated/banned online because popular opinion is tired of your assholery and the very real, credible threat of fucking lynching black people, which (and again I don't pay much attention here so I could be way off base) I do believe actually fucking happened, you know, IRL. Nice, real nice. For your next act might I suggest you try to really illustrate the gravity of the terrible injustice being perpetrated on you via internet comments and all those mean people on TV, and go for something involving brown shirts and gas chambers?
I usually try for a more satirical, humorous approach to combating vile idiocy, but this is just a bridge too far. Fuck you, dude. Seriously. Fuck you.
Their hypervigilant drive to hunt down any topic that, using the most tenuous of tangents, can be bent, crammed or shoe-horned into an excuse to make a screed against those that disagree with them
Their logical fallacies of calling those that disagree with them bigots whilst casting broad aspersions on generalized groups of people
Their false equation of somebody calling them out on their shitty opinions as an attack on free speech
Their desperate need to frame everything as being somehow discriminatory against them and make themselves the center of victim attention of the moment
I applaud your courage and urge everyone to help fight them at every turn by:
Having a hypervigilant drive to hunt down any topic that, using the most tenuous of tangents, can be bent, crammed or shoe-horned into an excuse to make a screed against them
Using logical fallacies of calling them bigots whilst casting broad aspersions on generalized groups of people
Promoting the false equation of being calling out on our shitty opinions as an attack on free speech
Desperately trying to frame everything as being somehow discriminatory against us white males and making ourselves the center of victim attention of the moment
God willing, in time, we will forge a bold new world free of those prejudiced fuckwits just looking for excuses to attack a group of people rather than considering the true merit and victims of every social issue without the pathetic cop-out of simply conflating it with said group of hated people and dashing off an insulting comment against them. Once they have all been silenced, only then can we have true discourse and freedom of speech, because logic.
Hint: that means, they mean the same thing. Coding is just the cooler sounding neologism.
Oh shit, you seriously think that? So for you, the entire world divides into 2 non-overlapping circles: 'people who can write code' and 'people who interact with software only via UIs' and everybody in the former category is a 'programmer' to you? That must be depressing to think that you do the same thing as a graphic design guy who makes a dynamic web page, an accountant that writes a VBScript in Excel or a PS engineer who writes a power flow in Matlab, which are all coincidentally reasons why learning to code is a valuable skill in many fields besides 'programming'.
Programming and coding are synonyms. Not sure if it makes sense to read the rest of your post if you not even knew that...
Well, Mr. Semantic Pendantic, had you read farther you would have seen my explanation as to why I believe they are indeed not the same thing, and maybe we could now be participating in a conversation about that. But, you have opted instead to make a sad, patronizing attack based on your interpretation of 2 words. Hooray for dialogue! You maybe should have stuck it out to the last line, since I think it applies to you.
Anybody can learn to code. Not anybody can learn to program because it is not a skill, but an aptitude that is facilitated by learning the skill of coding. Yes, many people (many of you here included apparently) do not understand the distinction, but that does not mean that coding is not indeed a teachable skill that will be ever more ubiquitous as a secondary job requirement. As the world fills up with ever more big boy pants software written by real programmers, so shall it need an ever increasing number of people with the basic coding skills to script together API functions to accomplish a task. This is why I use the terms 'coder' and 'programmer' to mean 2 very different things, one of which is far more valuable / highly paid in terms of the code they produce. Here's the thing though - producing code is maybe not that other person's job. They may have an entirely different discipline from you, and just need to use your software to facilitate their primary function. Let's not forget that we don't all write software for no reason, we write it to help somebody do something - and unless we all want to spend the rest of our lives doing UI work that means that somebody else who is not a programmer will need to be able to code to use your stuff.
I, for example write clever code to create a framework that enables a power systems engineer to write significantly less clever, script-y code to do a clever thing. I would not trust him to write a program any more than he would trust me to certify the feasibility of bringing another 20Mw of generation online without burning a transmission line, but we are both 'coders'. And this, as far as I can tell, is the level of coding that is being taught in these things - simple scripting of pre-implemented functions with some introduction to creating subroutines, etc. I doubt if OO anything even comes into play. So get off their backs and get over yourselves - everybody can code. If you see teaching scripting to kids as an insult to your 31337 h4x0r skills, then maybe the poser in the room is you.
I think you misread me - I am taking issue with shallow political arguments consisting of bumper sticker insults, not claiming that they are unique to the left or the right. While I do think that Bush was an idiot (see my original statement - Cheney was the brains), I try not to let that influence how I approach an argument about his policies. It's a lazy cop out to try to end a debate on the efficacy of a politician by simply insulting their character. I will admit that Trump is making this very, very hard for me to avoid.
If Bush was somehow able to scheme up a lie that convinced John Kerry and Hillary Clinton (among others) to vote for the Iraq war, how stupid could he be? Or for that matter if Kerry and Clinton were duped by the simpleton Bush, how can we take anything the say or do seriously either?
Again, I think not Bush but Cheney was the brains there. Also, I hardly believe that either of them were 'convinced' so much as caught in a tide of sentiment that they politically could not swim against. Either way though you have a point - they voted for it, and they should have to answer for that. As far as Hillary's past goes, that vote concerns me far more than some mis-managed email.
I'm hearing some pretty bad things monetarily that likely will be happening to it come about 2017
Yes, sometimes despite the TV being off I think I can hear Sean Hannity too.
And if these bad things happen, it seems you will gleefully rejoice in this failure? Millions lose healthcare and the deficit is (more) trashed, but 'yahoo! Obama failed!', is that it? If you put more effort into contributing your ideas on how to improve things rather than wanking over the failure of a person you hate, perhaps it would be easier to take anything you say seriously. Even if you disagree with the program, once it is underway the conscionable thing to do is hope that it works out to the benefit of the country. Remember when criticizing the Iraq war made you a troop-hating traitor? What does this cheerleading for failure make you?
You obviously disagree that it was a good idea, but passing the ACA even in it's neutered net state was not 'optics'. You can't have it both ways - he can't be both tyrant and useless poster boy, machiavellian villain and idiot at the same time. You are free to disagree with his actions, but to deny that he has performed any just makes you look ignorant. I despise Dick Cheney, but I will never deny that he was a smart guy who knew how to put a plan in action. Maybe next time try arguing the merit of your counterpoints to his policies instead of trotting out this tired BS.
Sounds to me like the Brazilian telecom companies that were so happy to shut down the service may have had some part in constructing the ultimatum demand for user data that led to that action. I don't think we are looking at a judicial ruling on civil rights / privacy here so much as an orchestrated power move to maintain a monopoly.
OK, good point. I'm on board with that, although I would rather see something done to fix corporate taxation (or lack thereof). In terms of efficacy, raising minimum income tax is just pandering without also addressing the issue from the other end.
better care for veterans, and a more aggressive negotiating position with China
Those are goals, not actions. I don't think anybody says we shouldn't be trying for those things. I want to know how he proposes to accomplish them, especially when one of them requires more tax money and the other one is unlikely to be achieved by calling them losers.
That's the trick isn't it - it is inevitably an unwinnable situation and there will always be people who can't (or shouldn't) be helped. My stance is that this is no excuse to throw your hands up and do nothing. If we want to consider ourselves a civilized and just society, we have a moral obligation to at least try to help as many people as much as possible without doing serious harm to others. I know, 'serious harm' is going to be the subjective sticking point in that statement, but to me, a small fraction of a paycheck does not remotely qualify. There is a balancing point somewhere which we need to find, and such a thing cannot be codified. So, we must (and should) keep having the argument at all times about when enough is enough. I don't think we are anywhere near that point.
I've just simply fucking had it with people who think that assistance programs can somehow not be accompanied with some level of incompetence, abuse and mismanagement, and that these are reasons to not have them at all. No action of of the federal government will ever have 100% positive results. As a pragmatist who does not consider societal policy a set of equations evaluated in a vacuum, I would happily settle for anything over 60%. And yes, I recognize the oxymoron I just created there using percentages to describe subjective quantities.
That little exchange reminded me of a big pet peeve of mine which I will admit I just indulged in a bit. Ever notice how when somebody agrees with an interpretation of the Constitution 'it's the law', and when they don't it's 'not what the founding father intended'? Can we all just agree that the Constitution is a work in progress, and that citing verbiage from it / rulings on it is no more valid a way to shut down an ethics argument that hurling Bible quotes? There are arguments about what is legal, and there are arguments about what is right. I think most arguments here are the latter, which makes arguments to the former lazy appeals to authority.
Hence the phrase 'spirit of the Constitution', wich you seem to think is that people without this arbitrary distinction know as citizenship are not to be availed any rights against discrimination. Is that the America you are proud of? Cuz it sounds pretty shitty to me. The fact that somebody once ruled that it is legal doesn't make it any less so.
Went on it last week and it worked quite well and was a damn sight more informative and easy to use than the sites provided by my own insurance company / employer. Just sayin'.
Building a wall and making Mexico pay for it fails the feasibility text I'm afraid. Screening immigrants for religious reasons is not exactly in the spirit of the Constitution. Try again.
You say it like it's cigarettes and beer. It's fucking health care and financial assistance programs for people (you know, humans like you and I), and the transition of some of our tax burden to the mega corporations that currently pay jack shit. Disagree with the programs if you want, but don't be the disingenuous prick who reduces the whole thing to your idiot fiction of a black Friday mob of welfare mothers.
Look I'll grant you that every media outlet has a narrative whether they are trying to or not (hint though: the left's isn't the only one).
But seriously, with Trump, what is there to filter? Where is the missing narrative of the time he proposed a policy that made any goddamn sense whatsoever (another hint: yelling at somebody you don't like is not a policy)? I mean, there are people with whom I strongly disagree on how implement solutions (i.e. Cheney: I hate you but you are a clever sumbitch), and then there are complete lunatics brimming with extreme personality disorders proposing things that make a bridge to the moon sound sane.
Please tell me, what did I miss? I would honestly like to know what actual action Trump has proposed that you (or anybody) thought was appropriate, feasible and constitutional?
It's a mistake to assume that welfare can only come from the state.
So if all welfare programs were shut down tomorrow, I can assume that you will promptly take your extra $20 per paycheck and start researching charities to whom you can give the money, or start one where / for whom it is needed and contribute your time to it despite the fact that 'where it is needed' is nowhere near where you live and 'for whom it is needed' is a bunch of people you don't like? I think not.
The problem with the welfare state is that it reduces production
Well it doesn't get any more reductionist than that. I'm not sure how the spherical cows breathe in the vacuum where you live.
That is also the reason most societies with welfare as their primary reason for being fail catastrophically
As a 'primary reason'? Who the hell ever made a society where the 'primary reason' was to have the problems that require welfare? Please don't tell me you had Soviet / Maoist communism in mind, because that is not 'welfare' that is inversion of ownership and entirely inapplicable to the discussion of having a well-regulated capitalist society where people contribute a fair share to its general well-being.
We all 'share' a society. That society has burdens, which by the transitive property we all also 'share'. So yes, we have 'shared burdens'.
Your point seems to be that we do not share a responsibility to address those burdens. Or is it that you would be just fine with sharing if it just wasn't the mean ol' government making you do it? I find this to be the most disingenuous argument one can make on this topic: the idea that if only the government would tear down all these forced contributions that somehow a voluntary grassroots movement of welfare would spring up and be organized, effective, located even remotely near the areas where it is most needed, somehow free of corruption, bungling and discriminatory treatment. Utterly ridiculous.
No, what I would say is that welfare inputs and the problems they are meant to address are 2 opposing forces, and that just putting something in doesn't mean you will see a net positive. You have to put enough in to counterbalance the problem, and I don't think that has happened over last 50 years. At best we have slowed the decline, not made progress.
Meanwhile, welfare programs and those who need them are consistently demonized and targeted as the 'takers' of society in an ongoing crusade to redirect people's attention away from the much larger deficit-inducing items that nobody wants to take on because they have lobbies behind them. It is a constant struggle to even maintain the existence of these programs, much less improve them. Every time one is shown to have flaws the reaction is 'kill it!' rather than 'fix it'. How somebody can think cutting welfare is a top priority in the face of the state of our banking regulation and corporate taxation systems is well and truly beyond my reckoning.
Slashdot Mirror
*Sigh*...Read it again, more carefully this time. Hint: it contains satire.
You know, after reading your other response above I see that your main objection to 'SJW' seems to be the whole getting people fired/doxed/etc thing rather than the whole being very vocal all the time about an issue which may or may not have legitimacy thing that others object to, and that I have your base position wrong (although your sig is certainly no help in discerning this information). Just further evidence that we need to dispense with 'SJW' and go back to talking about issues like reasonable people. Continuing to assume you believe the former, I think there is actually much good debate to be had on the fine line between deserved backlash for speech/actions and persecution. It is a tangle though, so if we are going to discuss it I'd prefer to go beyond hurling acronym labels and look at the merits of each case, but can't now - gotta pick up my son (correct, I am not a millenial).
Just wanted to clear that up - still think your original post is vile in the extreme. I think you just became my first 'foe'? How exciting!
You miss my point. Professional reactionaries/victims of any stripe are idiots. So are people who try reduce this behavior to a single word or acronym, then hurl that around as if everybody has already agreed in each case that they are indeed just being reactionary instead of having a legitimate beef. I think we agree on one of those statements.
My problem is with the absolutely ridiculous and disgusting comparison you have drawn to justify your argument. Now you have compounded that with the tired fallacy of thinking that because I am not A then I must be B. Argumentatively speaking your hole is getting deeper, and it kinda smells too.
Rolling for satire...critical miss! I don't need to RTF-anything to know that 'SJW' is a useless term and that people using it should be thoroughly mocked until they decide to form an actual cogent thought. I think(?) we agree, but I honestly can't tell if you mis-read me or if you just replied to the wrong post.
A sjw is someone pushing progressive social politics in an unyielding, uncompromising way.
Ah, so now we come down to it. It seems then that it has nothing to do with the general concept of pushing politics in an unyielding, uncompromising way, which I think we can all agree makes you an insufferable asshole. It is just code for people who do so and with whom you do not agree, specifically those on the left. So, it is a not-so-clever little piece of Luntz-speak garbage that attempts to reframe a pejorative thought about a subjective opinion (I hate libtards) and turn it into a statement of objective fact (SJWs are bad. Who are SJWs and why are they bad? They are whoever I say they are, and they are bad because they disagree with me). Excellent, I'm glad we cleared that up. Carry on using it everyone - it doesn't in the least make you sound like an idiot when you lob it at somebody and sit back in satisfaction knowing that you have meticulously dismantled all of their arguments with your word of power.
Yes, because the persecution of the white male by 'SJWs' in today's society is totally a real, tangible thing that is ruining lives through systemic oppression and causing us to live in fear of physical violence and death. It is, isn't it? I mean I don't read the news much - I just assumed, based on how everybody is losing their goddamn minds over it. Otherwise no sane human would try to draw an analogy between being berated/banned online because popular opinion is tired of your assholery and the very real, credible threat of fucking lynching black people, which (and again I don't pay much attention here so I could be way off base) I do believe actually fucking happened, you know, IRL. Nice, real nice. For your next act might I suggest you try to really illustrate the gravity of the terrible injustice being perpetrated on you via internet comments and all those mean people on TV, and go for something involving brown shirts and gas chambers?
I usually try for a more satirical, humorous approach to combating vile idiocy, but this is just a bridge too far. Fuck you, dude. Seriously. Fuck you.
Yes, those damn SJWs:
Their hypervigilant drive to hunt down any topic that, using the most tenuous of tangents, can be bent, crammed or shoe-horned into an excuse to make a screed against those that disagree with them
Their logical fallacies of calling those that disagree with them bigots whilst casting broad aspersions on generalized groups of people
Their false equation of somebody calling them out on their shitty opinions as an attack on free speech
Their desperate need to frame everything as being somehow discriminatory against them and make themselves the center of victim attention of the moment
I applaud your courage and urge everyone to help fight them at every turn by:
Having a hypervigilant drive to hunt down any topic that, using the most tenuous of tangents, can be bent, crammed or shoe-horned into an excuse to make a screed against them
Using logical fallacies of calling them bigots whilst casting broad aspersions on generalized groups of people
Promoting the false equation of being calling out on our shitty opinions as an attack on free speech
Desperately trying to frame everything as being somehow discriminatory against us white males and making ourselves the center of victim attention of the moment
God willing, in time, we will forge a bold new world free of those prejudiced fuckwits just looking for excuses to attack a group of people rather than considering the true merit and victims of every social issue without the pathetic cop-out of simply conflating it with said group of hated people and dashing off an insulting comment against them. Once they have all been silenced, only then can we have true discourse and freedom of speech, because logic.
Hint: that means, they mean the same thing. Coding is just the cooler sounding neologism.
Oh shit, you seriously think that? So for you, the entire world divides into 2 non-overlapping circles: 'people who can write code' and 'people who interact with software only via UIs' and everybody in the former category is a 'programmer' to you? That must be depressing to think that you do the same thing as a graphic design guy who makes a dynamic web page, an accountant that writes a VBScript in Excel or a PS engineer who writes a power flow in Matlab, which are all coincidentally reasons why learning to code is a valuable skill in many fields besides 'programming'.
Programming and coding are synonyms. Not sure if it makes sense to read the rest of your post if you not even knew that ...
Well, Mr. Semantic Pendantic, had you read farther you would have seen my explanation as to why I believe they are indeed not the same thing, and maybe we could now be participating in a conversation about that. But, you have opted instead to make a sad, patronizing attack based on your interpretation of 2 words. Hooray for dialogue! You maybe should have stuck it out to the last line, since I think it applies to you.
Anybody can learn to code. Not anybody can learn to program because it is not a skill, but an aptitude that is facilitated by learning the skill of coding. Yes, many people (many of you here included apparently) do not understand the distinction, but that does not mean that coding is not indeed a teachable skill that will be ever more ubiquitous as a secondary job requirement. As the world fills up with ever more big boy pants software written by real programmers, so shall it need an ever increasing number of people with the basic coding skills to script together API functions to accomplish a task. This is why I use the terms 'coder' and 'programmer' to mean 2 very different things, one of which is far more valuable / highly paid in terms of the code they produce. Here's the thing though - producing code is maybe not that other person's job. They may have an entirely different discipline from you, and just need to use your software to facilitate their primary function. Let's not forget that we don't all write software for no reason, we write it to help somebody do something - and unless we all want to spend the rest of our lives doing UI work that means that somebody else who is not a programmer will need to be able to code to use your stuff.
I, for example write clever code to create a framework that enables a power systems engineer to write significantly less clever, script-y code to do a clever thing. I would not trust him to write a program any more than he would trust me to certify the feasibility of bringing another 20Mw of generation online without burning a transmission line, but we are both 'coders'. And this, as far as I can tell, is the level of coding that is being taught in these things - simple scripting of pre-implemented functions with some introduction to creating subroutines, etc. I doubt if OO anything even comes into play. So get off their backs and get over yourselves - everybody can code. If you see teaching scripting to kids as an insult to your 31337 h4x0r skills, then maybe the poser in the room is you.
I think you misread me - I am taking issue with shallow political arguments consisting of bumper sticker insults, not claiming that they are unique to the left or the right. While I do think that Bush was an idiot (see my original statement - Cheney was the brains), I try not to let that influence how I approach an argument about his policies. It's a lazy cop out to try to end a debate on the efficacy of a politician by simply insulting their character. I will admit that Trump is making this very, very hard for me to avoid.
If Bush was somehow able to scheme up a lie that convinced John Kerry and Hillary Clinton (among others) to vote for the Iraq war, how stupid could he be? Or for that matter if Kerry and Clinton were duped by the simpleton Bush, how can we take anything the say or do seriously either?
Again, I think not Bush but Cheney was the brains there. Also, I hardly believe that either of them were 'convinced' so much as caught in a tide of sentiment that they politically could not swim against. Either way though you have a point - they voted for it, and they should have to answer for that. As far as Hillary's past goes, that vote concerns me far more than some mis-managed email.
I'm hearing some pretty bad things monetarily that likely will be happening to it come about 2017
Yes, sometimes despite the TV being off I think I can hear Sean Hannity too.
And if these bad things happen, it seems you will gleefully rejoice in this failure? Millions lose healthcare and the deficit is (more) trashed, but 'yahoo! Obama failed!', is that it? If you put more effort into contributing your ideas on how to improve things rather than wanking over the failure of a person you hate, perhaps it would be easier to take anything you say seriously. Even if you disagree with the program, once it is underway the conscionable thing to do is hope that it works out to the benefit of the country. Remember when criticizing the Iraq war made you a troop-hating traitor? What does this cheerleading for failure make you?
You obviously disagree that it was a good idea, but passing the ACA even in it's neutered net state was not 'optics'. You can't have it both ways - he can't be both tyrant and useless poster boy, machiavellian villain and idiot at the same time. You are free to disagree with his actions, but to deny that he has performed any just makes you look ignorant. I despise Dick Cheney, but I will never deny that he was a smart guy who knew how to put a plan in action. Maybe next time try arguing the merit of your counterpoints to his policies instead of trotting out this tired BS.
Sounds to me like the Brazilian telecom companies that were so happy to shut down the service may have had some part in constructing the ultimatum demand for user data that led to that action. I don't think we are looking at a judicial ruling on civil rights / privacy here so much as an orchestrated power move to maintain a monopoly.
Raise the minimum income tax level
OK, good point. I'm on board with that, although I would rather see something done to fix corporate taxation (or lack thereof). In terms of efficacy, raising minimum income tax is just pandering without also addressing the issue from the other end.
better care for veterans, and a more aggressive negotiating position with China
Those are goals, not actions. I don't think anybody says we shouldn't be trying for those things. I want to know how he proposes to accomplish them, especially when one of them requires more tax money and the other one is unlikely to be achieved by calling them losers.
That's the trick isn't it - it is inevitably an unwinnable situation and there will always be people who can't (or shouldn't) be helped. My stance is that this is no excuse to throw your hands up and do nothing. If we want to consider ourselves a civilized and just society, we have a moral obligation to at least try to help as many people as much as possible without doing serious harm to others. I know, 'serious harm' is going to be the subjective sticking point in that statement, but to me, a small fraction of a paycheck does not remotely qualify. There is a balancing point somewhere which we need to find, and such a thing cannot be codified. So, we must (and should) keep having the argument at all times about when enough is enough. I don't think we are anywhere near that point.
I've just simply fucking had it with people who think that assistance programs can somehow not be accompanied with some level of incompetence, abuse and mismanagement, and that these are reasons to not have them at all. No action of of the federal government will ever have 100% positive results. As a pragmatist who does not consider societal policy a set of equations evaluated in a vacuum, I would happily settle for anything over 60%. And yes, I recognize the oxymoron I just created there using percentages to describe subjective quantities.
That little exchange reminded me of a big pet peeve of mine which I will admit I just indulged in a bit. Ever notice how when somebody agrees with an interpretation of the Constitution 'it's the law', and when they don't it's 'not what the founding father intended'? Can we all just agree that the Constitution is a work in progress, and that citing verbiage from it / rulings on it is no more valid a way to shut down an ethics argument that hurling Bible quotes? There are arguments about what is legal, and there are arguments about what is right. I think most arguments here are the latter, which makes arguments to the former lazy appeals to authority.
Hence the phrase 'spirit of the Constitution', wich you seem to think is that people without this arbitrary distinction know as citizenship are not to be availed any rights against discrimination. Is that the America you are proud of? Cuz it sounds pretty shitty to me. The fact that somebody once ruled that it is legal doesn't make it any less so.
Went on it last week and it worked quite well and was a damn sight more informative and easy to use than the sites provided by my own insurance company / employer. Just sayin'.
Building a wall and making Mexico pay for it fails the feasibility text I'm afraid. Screening immigrants for religious reasons is not exactly in the spirit of the Constitution. Try again.
"free" stuff
You say it like it's cigarettes and beer. It's fucking health care and financial assistance programs for people (you know, humans like you and I), and the transition of some of our tax burden to the mega corporations that currently pay jack shit. Disagree with the programs if you want, but don't be the disingenuous prick who reduces the whole thing to your idiot fiction of a black Friday mob of welfare mothers.
Look I'll grant you that every media outlet has a narrative whether they are trying to or not (hint though: the left's isn't the only one).
But seriously, with Trump, what is there to filter? Where is the missing narrative of the time he proposed a policy that made any goddamn sense whatsoever (another hint: yelling at somebody you don't like is not a policy)? I mean, there are people with whom I strongly disagree on how implement solutions (i.e. Cheney: I hate you but you are a clever sumbitch), and then there are complete lunatics brimming with extreme personality disorders proposing things that make a bridge to the moon sound sane.
Please tell me, what did I miss? I would honestly like to know what actual action Trump has proposed that you (or anybody) thought was appropriate, feasible and constitutional?
...whether to make joke...about...trump is a wind bag...or...about....ridiculous hair blowing away...
It's a mistake to assume that welfare can only come from the state.
So if all welfare programs were shut down tomorrow, I can assume that you will promptly take your extra $20 per paycheck and start researching charities to whom you can give the money, or start one where / for whom it is needed and contribute your time to it despite the fact that 'where it is needed' is nowhere near where you live and 'for whom it is needed' is a bunch of people you don't like? I think not.
The problem with the welfare state is that it reduces production
Well it doesn't get any more reductionist than that. I'm not sure how the spherical cows breathe in the vacuum where you live.
That is also the reason most societies with welfare as their primary reason for being fail catastrophically
As a 'primary reason'? Who the hell ever made a society where the 'primary reason' was to have the problems that require welfare? Please don't tell me you had Soviet / Maoist communism in mind, because that is not 'welfare' that is inversion of ownership and entirely inapplicable to the discussion of having a well-regulated capitalist society where people contribute a fair share to its general well-being.
We all 'share' a society. That society has burdens, which by the transitive property we all also 'share'. So yes, we have 'shared burdens'.
Your point seems to be that we do not share a responsibility to address those burdens. Or is it that you would be just fine with sharing if it just wasn't the mean ol' government making you do it? I find this to be the most disingenuous argument one can make on this topic: the idea that if only the government would tear down all these forced contributions that somehow a voluntary grassroots movement of welfare would spring up and be organized, effective, located even remotely near the areas where it is most needed, somehow free of corruption, bungling and discriminatory treatment. Utterly ridiculous.
No, what I would say is that welfare inputs and the problems they are meant to address are 2 opposing forces, and that just putting something in doesn't mean you will see a net positive. You have to put enough in to counterbalance the problem, and I don't think that has happened over last 50 years. At best we have slowed the decline, not made progress.
Meanwhile, welfare programs and those who need them are consistently demonized and targeted as the 'takers' of society in an ongoing crusade to redirect people's attention away from the much larger deficit-inducing items that nobody wants to take on because they have lobbies behind them. It is a constant struggle to even maintain the existence of these programs, much less improve them. Every time one is shown to have flaws the reaction is 'kill it!' rather than 'fix it'. How somebody can think cutting welfare is a top priority in the face of the state of our banking regulation and corporate taxation systems is well and truly beyond my reckoning.