Imagine if the Federal Government let New York keep that money in state...instant balanced budget and then some.
Sounds like a great idea to solve the NY problem... but, like most governments, the surplus wouldn't last for long. They'd find some way to spend it and get right back to where they are now.
How the Government institutions tell folks that they should be more fiscally responsible while they run up more and more debt. I guess if I had a tax base, I wouldn't be concerned with how much I spent every year either.
Yeah... it'd be nice if I could use the barrel of a gun to take whatever money I require to cover my "needs"...
But the state needs to stop bleeding money immediately.
Wrong analogy. Stopping the bleeding would be more appropriate to spending cuts (like normal people would do in this situation). Raising taxes is getting a blood transfusion.
So you'd rather preach, be self-righteous, and let people starve than deal with the REAL problems that are out there? I hate this "personal responsibility" crap. I am personally responsible. So are many people that get laid off and take advantage of the Unemployment Insurance that they PAY for out of their checks. The idea that somehow people in the past were more responsible, or educated, or hardworking is just plain crap. Every time the financial markets get deregulated, predatory lending takes off, and everyone ends up broke. The idea that somehow uneducated consumers that haven't dealt their whole lives with complex financial instruments that many of the people selling them don't even fully grasp is blaming the victim.
Why don't you take the energy used to create all that hot air and use it to make some positive changes in the world? Volunteer doing literacy training so that someone who "didn't pay attention in school" can get a shot at life and be productive members of society (since you understand that's what the VAST MAJORITY of them want to do?). Go feed some people at a homeless shelter and see how our Department of Veteran's Affairs leaves those that should be heroes behind to deal with debilitating psychological disorders without a shred of help.
Either grow a heart and start being a part of the solution or shut up and sit down.
I find it humorous that you start your post with "So you'd rather preach, be self-righteous" and then proceed to spew as much dogma in the other direction.
Whether we like it or not, personal responsibility has a role to play. And for the other folks, we do have to have a social safety net. When we go full blast in either direction, that's when we get screwed.
If we just hand out money, health care, food, houses, cars and anything else anyone would ever want, who the hell is ever going to work? I know that you're not taking that position, but despite how we like to divide the world into us vs them, everything exists on a spectrum. And, your idea is more in that direction than the GP's.
It's a good thing that people have to work to afford life. The product of that work is the betterment of humanity. It either improves our living conditions or enriches our experience. We need people to work. And, unfortunately, the vast majority of us (and I would put myself at the top of this list) need the threat of a painful life to get us to perform at our best.
Now, there are certainly those that are unable to provide for themselves. And, you point out many that would fit in that category. We certainly should make sure that those are taken care of. And, like you say, those that can be educated and elevated should be. Those that can't, we have to care for them too.
But, we have to be able to distinguish those that truly need the help from those that can elevate themselves but refuse to become motivated. It is a moral evil against humanity to allow someone to stay in a ditch when they don't have to. It is an afront to those that are truly in need to not compel those that can contribute to do so. They take away resources from those that truly need them. They also have the ability inside them to rise up and give back to further help those in need.
I agree with you and the GP. The problem is that we have to understand that both approaches are valid and required to be "part of the solution." All we are doing in theses discussions are "preaching and being self-righteous". All we are doing is dividing for the sake of philosophy rather than finding common ground and understanding that we all and all of our ideas are needed to fix these things.
So you've shown that religion isn't necessary for violence. I don't think that's what anyone is saying. Would you say it's easier or harder to organize a violent effort when religion is involved?
It's easier when power is involved. Without power or the desire for power, there's very little violence to be had.
So, yes. It's easier to organize violent effort with religion. It's also easier with government. All you need is someone with power that uses propaganda to create in-groups and out-groups. Ratchet it up and you get your violence.
So, if you want little violence, you need to ensure that power is never concentrated. Unfortunately, we like our religion... and for those that don't, we like our government...
Well but then you're not talking about religion but something else. What you're referring to is that its fairly easy to get humans to rally around any sort of idea or belief, and then paint their group as being under attack, which will provoke a defense response. Its a fundamental human nature that gave us a competitive advantage when we were still just small groups strewn about the globe.
I think people give religion too much credit. Religion is not some special-case organization, but rather a simple result of the mental quirks that evolved in humans to help us survive. You can see a lot of the behavior from people who adhere strongly to political parties, racial-supremacy groups, nations (nationalism), and even sports teams. Even the religion-is-bad crowd says a lot of shit that is stunningly similar to a lot of stuff that the religious crowd puts out.
The reality is that its a problem with humanity, not a problem with religious people. Religion just tends to be an easy and comfortable target to project their fears and anger on. Kind-of like the atheist version of Satan and heathens, so to speak. Of course, recognizing that its a human condition brings up all sorts of uncomfortable truths.
Exactly. And Slashdot illustrates this point everyday. People choose a side and it's us vs. them. We get the capitalists v. socialists, unions/small guy/whatever oppressed group v. the corporations, democrats v. republicans, MS v. Linux v. Apple, etc.
We've all got our dogma and refuse to ever truly question OUR side. After all, we're the one's that are right. Those other guys are just evil and selfish...
I'm not going to be presumptuous and assume that you're socialist just because you jumped on the gp.
You make a great point that government does have a role in any society. And it's really moot for anyone to argue for an entirely free market society anyway. It's never going to happen.
So, given that, we have to figure out what government does best and what it doesn't do best.
The interstate highway system was a military project. The intent of Eisenhower was to build the capability to move troops and equipment as quickly as possible to strategic places around the country. He got the idea from Germany which had done the same thing. Private use was just a nice side benefit. Without the military purpose, it wouldn't have happened.
The government didn't build the railroad system. That was built by private companies. It's become much more nationalized now, though, which explains why we don't have high speed railway service in the vast majority of our country. We're stuck with the ineffective government backed bureaucracy of Amtrak. And, government regulations prevent it from being viable for private companies to develop an alternative to the government monopoly.
The only people that would disagree about the government being in the military business just want them to do everything except military.
And, other than the progress made in the 1960's, which was also because of military-ish chest thumping, the space program has been sadly underachieving as compared to where private companies have progressed in only the last few years with substantially lower budgets. Sure, you can argue that NASA laid the ground work, but what the hell have they done with it?
And, I'd hardly compare Columbus being funded by the king and queen of Spain as being "publicly" funded. When you have an autocracy, you can cut out the bureaucracy. It doesn't take weeks of committees, debates, votes and signatures. Democracy does.
So, I agree that government has a role. And, the example of police and fire companies I think is probably a good one. Of course, their success is due to the fact that they are locally controlled and managed. They're not wrapped up in a bureaucracy. Their roles and objectives are clear and unambiguous.
When you take an incredibly large and ambiguous objective and hand it over to an even larger and more ambiguous government bureaucracy, that's where the problem comes in. In software engineering, we call these concepts scope and requirements definition.
So, what should be the scope of government, with respect to YOURCAUSEHERE? And what are the requirements?
Anyone who's worked on a variety of projects of varying size can tell you that the bigger the scope, the more likely the requirements can't be met... at least effectively. Sure, you can keep throwing money at it. That's what bankrupts companies... and governments.
RE the "free market", that's exactly why I proceeded the phrase by "so-called". Just like "clean coal" and "jumbo shrimp", it flat doesn't exist.
And as far an people going bankrupt because they can't afford to stay alive any other way, I for one see absolutely NOTHING "nice to know" surrounding that sad state of affairs.
In 2008, in the wealthiest country on the planet, when people get vetted at an intake station at a hospital as to whether or not they have any health insurance, which literally determines what level of care they get, I call that a meat grinder.
Now we can debate night and day about whether or not health care is something that is the governments responsibility or not. I'm just looking at the economics here. Whether it's an insurance company bureaucracy or a government bureaucracy doesn't really matter to me. The bureaucracy is the problem.
Just a couple of generations back, there was virtually no one that had health insurance. If you got sick, you went to the doctor and paid him out of your pocket. Then because of different employment regulations and to lower operating costs while retaining and recruiting talent, businesses started using health insurance as an employer provided benefit.
Initially, it was just for major problems that would be too large to come out of pocket for. That was to prevent the bankruptcy issue you're discussing. But, the insurance companies were smart and they convinced the employers to expand coverage while they expanded their role and influence in the medical industry.
And so, you get to what we have today, which is health "insurance" isn't insurance at all. It's a health care payment plan. That was what the insurance companies wanted to do with the system and they succeeded.
The problem is the number of people involved in even making the most minor doctor visits possible. The doctors had to hire people to handle billing the insurance companies. The insurance companies have to have people to handle the payments. They have to have a staff of doctors to review and approve "necessary" procedures. And, you can never leave out all the lawyers and sales people (like they would let you).
So now, instead of paying the doctor to take a look at you and write you a prescription, you have to pay the doctor, his employees, the insurance company, its employees and of course all the lawyers required to make sure that no one gets sued.
The best thing for health care is to get the bureaucracies out of it. Let the patients pay the doctor for their service. Keep insurance, whether private or government provided, for only the catastrophic situations that would cause someone to be financially ruined. Then the costs would go down.
Insurance companies like the high costs because it keeps them in a position where they're needed. So, they set the prices. Just look at any insurance statement you get and you'll see that they pay what they want. If they get out of things, then the doctors can cut staff that aren't helping patients. They can cut prices and make things more affordable. Then, the free market will be managing the costs.
Now, I'm sure that many would start pointing out that the expansion of insurance coverage can be demonstrated as working to better things because of the life expectancy now as compared to the past when people paid directly for their health care. I would argue that the expectancy has changed because of technological improvements much more so than an
...and anyone who wants to stream decent quality video, and anyone who wants unfiltered access, and anyone who wants to use decent quality VOIP applications, and anyone who wants to game with decent latencies, and anyone who wants good USENET access (yeah, all three of them)...
The point is that there are many reasons why you would want to pay for extra bandwidth. The point of the service is to offer basic service. There's no reason for it to grow beyond that. If you think it necessarily MUST grow beyond that, I have to ask why aren't food stamp programs paying for EVERYONE'S food now?
That's not how government services work, though. If someone had suggested 15 years ago that the government should provide Internet service, most people would have thought it was insane. And now, the expectation is just for basic service. At some point, all of those other features have to be provided because they too will become "necessary" for everyone to have.
I'm not commenting here on whether or not government should or should not be doing this. I'm just saying that your argument that the "free" service is just going to be basic is only a temporary one. Any argument that can be made for providing the basic service now will be used later for the others.
Government influence only expands. It never shrinks.
Any argument for confiscating someone else's property and giving it to someone else for health care is easily extended to anything I've requested.
Eh, you one of those "tax is theft" people?
You said stealing. I didn't. I said confiscating. If someone takes something from you at the point of a gun (don't pay your taxes and see if that's the case), then it certainly can't be considered voluntary. It's much closer to theft than charity, whether you like that reality or not.
I'm simply taking these arguments to their logical conclusions. As things become more commonly available, at some point we decide that they are essential and people can not be allowed to exist without them. So, then we decide that it is acceptable to take other people's property and provide people with these "essential" things.
You want taxes and social spending because it what makes a sizable middle class. Even if you're the biggest self-centered elitist on the planet, you want public spending because it means more educated workers and more customers for whatever business you are in or are invested in.
Huh? I don't understand how social spending makes a sizable middle class. I find your educational reason to be laughable considering that per-capita the US spends more on education than anywhere else in the world, yet our students rank very low compared to other industrialized nations.
I'm not arguing against taxes and spending in absolute terms. My argument is that you can't just throw money at problems. Our politicians use money to buy votes. They don't give a damn about making sure it's being used properly. They can just say that they increased spending on X by X billion dollars. So, then people think they give a shit about fixing things. The government doesn't have to compete for anything with anyone. It can do whatever it likes. So, why the hell is this the place we want to expand power. Let's get some accountability in place and maybe actually see some of these grand programs that keep getting created actually succeed before we throw more money to the greedy bastards.
Name for me one significant impact, large size program that has actually achieved something positive relative to the tons of money that has been pumped in and we can have a discussion. The problem is that the government has consistently demonstrated that it fucks things up and wastes ungodly amounts of resources that could be better used elsewhere.
Say what you want about rich people, but the one's I know are much less obsessed with money than most of the poor people I know.
Great, so they'll have no problem when we bring back the 91% marginal tax rates then.
And hopefully no one else will have a problem with the 17% inflation and 21% mortgage rates that accompanied those tax rates.
Any argument for confiscating someone else's property and giving it to someone else for health care is easily extended to anything I've requested.
It's not a straw man argument. 100 years ago, health care was essentially shit for all. The poorest among us today have much better than back then. The reason people make the argument for everyone to have equal health care is because of this vague term called "fair". It's not "fair" if we have the capability to heal people that we don't take other people's property and heal people.
It used to be the same thing for feeding people. Food used to be scarce for virtually all. Now, we wouldn't imagine taking someone else's property to keep someone from starving.
I'm simply taking these arguments to their logical conclusions. As things become more commonly available, at some point we decide that they are essential and people can not be allowed to exist without them. So, then we decide that it is acceptable to take other people's property and provide people with these "essential" things.
It used to be food, which I can understand. Now, it's health care, which is borderline offensive. Don't think that the next thing isn't Internet. The conversations are already happening.
In the past, people were governed by religious restrictions. Those sucked, but they worked to keep people essentially honest. After that, people got personal freedom. Then, the consequences of stupidity and stupid choices kept people in line. And now, we're trying to legislate those away.
I don't mind providing people some help when they have misfortune. I don't mind giving people the means to improve themselves and their situation. However, if we remove the disincentive to making poor decisions, we're not helping people. We're condemning them to a life that very likely offers nothing positive to society. We're creating black holes of productivity by telling kids, "it's ok if you fuck off school and just work at the burger joint. We're going to make sure everything you need is provided for."
Stupidity and laziness SHOULD be difficult and as utterly painful as possible. That provides people motivation to do something with themselves.
Now, I'm not saying the end all be all of existence is being a workaholic only pursuing the almighty dollar. But, I am saying that the end all be all is definitely not being a fuck off and pursuing someone else's almighty dollars.
Say what you want about rich people, but the one's I know are much less obsessed with money than most of the poor people I know. The reason why is that they've already learned that money is not what makes you happy in life. Those that haven't had it think it's going to solve everything. That's why this whole thing won't stop with health care. They'll get that and still be unhappy. So, they'll take more and more (look, only the top 5% is going to have to pay, right?) until there's nothing left and still won't be happy.
That's not going to stop the politicians from using that card to keep getting elected, though.
None do. Unfortunately, our press and our political system have conditioned us into the "us vs them" mentality. So, Americans only think there are two sides. And, they vote accordingly.
I imagine if he'd shown Kerry's concession speech to an audience 4 years ago, they'd at least be a few boos. It's easy to be graceful about losing 4 years ago when you just won. And, it's easy to be bitter about a loss you took just a few days ago. I'm not trying to defend any R's. I'm just pointing out that recency of a loss matters and it's easy to not be bitter if it's a relatively distant past loss accompanied by a very recent win.
I imagine if he'd shown Nixon's 1960 concession speech to Kennedy that the R's wouldn't have booed either.
It's not a reflection of party. You can't expect ANYONE to be over things that did get as bitter as they did that quickly. Come on, I still hear plenty of D's whining about 2000. I don't blame them because they're Democrats. I blame them because they need to just get over it. The past is gone. Things have "changed."
Conservatives need to get over this nonsense idea that rich business owners are the hardest-working members of society and the only ones who deserve all the perks. My salary is not determined entirely by how hard I work; a large part involves market forces outside my control. I'd be a moron to not realize that I'm at least a little bit lucky. This argument over who is working the hardest does not favor the wealthy.
I'm with you. Just because other people earn more money doesn't mean they're more deserving of it. I should be able to be that guy that just works at McD's and can go home after my shift and chill on the couch. And if I do, I should still get the same benefits I get today, because it's only fair. Everyone deserves to have full health care and those rich SOB's don't deserve all that money they have anyway.
And, of course, to be able to make it to work, I need some wheels, too. And since it's only fair that I have the same right to work as those lazy fucking rich bastards, we should take more of their money so that I can have a car to drive to McD's.
And, it's also not fair that they have these huge McMansions (no offense to my prospective employer) that they don't need. So, they could at least cut off a little more of their pie to get me a nice 3 br/2 ba spot. It's the American dream after all. We all deserve a nice place to call our own.
And, since in our modern world it's almost impossible to stay completely informed without Internet and cable tv, I need to have a nice computer, broadband, a tv and cable service. It's only fair. Those elitist rich bastards have their wireless Internets with their overpriced Macbooks. They can afford to give me a piece.
If we're going to be fair, god damn it, let's be fair. Don't tell me I'm being absurd for asking for all of it. These things are standard for our modern society, just like health care. Don't tell me those cheating rich fuckers can't afford it. And I deserve it because I'm breathing.
Where do you think the US learned it's ethnocentricity from anyway? As you so cleverly point out with your quip, they're just as blind to other perspectives as we are... and just as uppity about being "right" too.
If you're going to (permanently) break the 12pm = sun overhead, 12am = midnight relation, why not just ignore timezones and use UTC instead? The problem is how the time you start and stop work relates to the time that the sun rises and sets... what name you give those times doesn't matter.
As a pilot, I have no problem with this idea. With light activities, all we use is UTC. I've actually gotten quite used to adding 5 (or 4 during EDT) hours to think in UTC.
But to elaborate a bit more, I think the argument comes down to scope. Should every uniformed person, which unfortunately is the majority, have the ability to decide what everyone else's rules are?
The whole point of the US founders was that political power should be localized. People who live together and know each other by name are much less likely to engage in the tyranny of majority. When we nationalize power, we get to remove the face from our opposition and are therefore more likely to abuse that power. Instead of Joe and Susan, we now talk about "the rich" or the "deadbeats on welfare."
When we know these people by name, that changes things. We're less likely to make decisions that would severely hurt those that we know than we would those anonymous evil people that can easily be demonized.
There's no problem with democracy as long as each person is familiar with the others. It works great in smaller groups. It just doesn't scale very well. Because, as soon as you can create an imaginary boogey man for people to focus on instead of the real people, you will start getting irrationality. And, unfortunately, even without pure democracy, our system has already begun down that slippery slope.
So, I'm all tired with the craziness here in the U.S., but now my two main options Ireland and Australia are getting crazy with their Internet blocking and monitoring. Where the hell am I supposed to go to get some freedom?
The article makes the interesting point that our founding forefathers considered secret balloting cowardly. Clearly they did not anticipate violence as a tactic to tamper with elections. Our founding forefathers thought it was important to include an amendment stating that you could not be forced to quarter troops against your will in times of peace, clearly not anticipating that it would not really be an issue today. Some of our founding forefathers thought that slavery was alright. Not all of our founding forefathers thought separation of church and state as we take it today was a good idea.
It always strikes me as strange that people take the constitution as more than just a set of generally good ideas and precedents written by talented individuals. People act like because our founding forefathers said X, it was handed down by God himself.
I usually run up against this when the constitution seems to disagree with my liberal leanings (I'm sure someone will want to get into a pointless discussion of the second amendment, but we've all been down that road), but it's not limited to just that, and I'm sure it runs both ways.
More specific to elections though, isn't it about time we abolished the electoral college and go right to a popular vote? There is clearly no legitimate reason for it to still be around. Electors rarely switch their votes, and, as the article points out, the founders saying it's a good idea does not make it so.
I agree... to an extent. The electoral college is a joke and the founders were far from perfect in creating the system. However, I'd have to say they did fairly well for their time period.
Personally, I think we should do away entirely with the election of POTUS. We place way too much emphasis on what can be done by the president. The position is really just about running government from day to day. The real power of our system lies in congress.
I'd prefer to see us switch to a parlimentary system where the president is chosen by the Congress. Then, people would actually take note of their congress critters and do a better job (I'd hope) of keeping them in line. They're really the ones that can screw us. The president is mostly a figure head bureaucratic position. He doesn't make laws. He is responsible for enforcing them. However, he doesn't even have the power to decide who's guilty of breaking them or not. That's left to the Judiciary.
The entire president pop show really just distracts people from paying attention to those that have the real power. The re-election rate for Congress is somewhere near 90%. That's because we've been fooled into thinking that they aren't as important as POTUS.
What we need to get is a proper perspective on where REAL change (not the bumper sticker/empty platitude kind) can occur. Keep sending the same old politicians back to Congress and nothings going to change except what specifics they use to keep the people distracted.
Your head is either in the clouds, or in the sand. If you think X pushed X for any purpose but the acquisition of power, you're doing a great job of ignoring nearly all of history. Defending X because he's your political party is the sincerest imitation of soviet era politics, but so is destroying human rights for the sake of security.
There... fixed that for you...
Don't expect the Democrats or their supporters to act any differently than the Republicans and their supporters...
That says much more about the electorate than it does the president. Maybe we need to rethink just letting everyone vote because they're old enough and breathing? Maybe the ballots should include some test questions to see if you actually have a clue about what's going on in the world before your vote gets to count. Sure, I'll get the arguments that everyone should be able to vote because it's "fair". If you take that position, you have no right to bitch about Bush being president... or Obama if you're on the other side of the fence.
This analysis reminds me of discussions taking place around 2000, when the prevailing wisdom was that it would not make one bit of difference who got elected. We were wrong then, and you are wrong now.
Really? So, what did Gore do differently? Sure, he talks a different game now, but he's not the president. Everyone that takes that office tends to end up being a little different than what you thought they were going to be. I seriously doubt Gore would be the same in office as he is as an advocate. You have to be the president of the whole country, not just your specific special interests. Gore would have went to Afghanistan after 9/11. And the D's were just as eager to jump on the Iraq bandwagon after that as the R's. You can argue that Gore wouldn't have pushed the issue as hard, but the US was as a majority still blood-thirsty after Afghanistan because we still didn't feel like we'd been vindicated. Iraq was popular in 2003 and not that much can be attributed to Bush. The undercurrent was there. Gore might not have went to Iraq, but he'd have had to go somewhere because no politician is going to deny the people something like that because they know it gets them the votes they need.
And sure, you can argue that Bush was a big neo-con. But, he, along with the Republicans, did create the Medicare prescription drug benefit. That's hardly what the people that were voting for him on the Republican side were cheering for. In fact, he took a lot of criticism for that as well as his "no child left behind" programs from his side of the spectrum.
The fact is, no one governs completely from their side of the spectrum and gets 2 terms. The reality of being president is much different than the sales pitch you give when you're trying to get votes. Just watch how Obama does it after he takes office. If he pushes too hard to his side, the D's will lose Congress in 2 years. If he doesn't move to the center, he'll be out in 4.
We're in a 48%/48% country. The other 4% will react against anything they perceive as ideological blindfolds. That's what happened to Clinton in '94 and to Bush in '06. As much as people like to put their guy up on a pedestal, in the end, they're all politicians. All they really care about is getting and keeping power. So, watch how Obama handles things once he's got the keys.
The US is *bloody broken* after 8 years of "conservative" rule, including six years of absolute power, something the "liberals" haven't had for 30 years or so.
Uhh... the democrats did actually have the White House and both houses of Congress from 1993-1995. That's actually only about 13 years. Also, they did have the presidency and both houses of Congress from 77-81, by the end of which time inflation was at 17% and many people were getting mortgages that were at 21%.
Sure, the Republicans have screwed up. But, there is zero argument that full control in the other direction is any better. If anything, the 90's showed us that a moderate Democrat president and a moderately conservative congress (we have to ignore the whole Lewinski thing... it didn't really do anything but create political drama) is probably about the best we're going to get with the two-party duopoly our system seems to be stuck with.
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Now we know why the Earth is warming. We've just got less atmosphere to hold all the heat.
Imagine if the Federal Government let New York keep that money in state...instant balanced budget and then some.
Sounds like a great idea to solve the NY problem... but, like most governments, the surplus wouldn't last for long. They'd find some way to spend it and get right back to where they are now.
How the Government institutions tell folks that they should be more fiscally responsible while they run up more and more debt. I guess if I had a tax base, I wouldn't be concerned with how much I spent every year either.
Yeah... it'd be nice if I could use the barrel of a gun to take whatever money I require to cover my "needs"...
But the state needs to stop bleeding money immediately.
Wrong analogy. Stopping the bleeding would be more appropriate to spending cuts (like normal people would do in this situation). Raising taxes is getting a blood transfusion.
So you'd rather preach, be self-righteous, and let people starve than deal with the REAL problems that are out there? I hate this "personal responsibility" crap. I am personally responsible. So are many people that get laid off and take advantage of the Unemployment Insurance that they PAY for out of their checks. The idea that somehow people in the past were more responsible, or educated, or hardworking is just plain crap. Every time the financial markets get deregulated, predatory lending takes off, and everyone ends up broke. The idea that somehow uneducated consumers that haven't dealt their whole lives with complex financial instruments that many of the people selling them don't even fully grasp is blaming the victim.
Why don't you take the energy used to create all that hot air and use it to make some positive changes in the world? Volunteer doing literacy training so that someone who "didn't pay attention in school" can get a shot at life and be productive members of society (since you understand that's what the VAST MAJORITY of them want to do?). Go feed some people at a homeless shelter and see how our Department of Veteran's Affairs leaves those that should be heroes behind to deal with debilitating psychological disorders without a shred of help.
Either grow a heart and start being a part of the solution or shut up and sit down.
I find it humorous that you start your post with "So you'd rather preach, be self-righteous" and then proceed to spew as much dogma in the other direction.
Whether we like it or not, personal responsibility has a role to play. And for the other folks, we do have to have a social safety net. When we go full blast in either direction, that's when we get screwed.
If we just hand out money, health care, food, houses, cars and anything else anyone would ever want, who the hell is ever going to work? I know that you're not taking that position, but despite how we like to divide the world into us vs them, everything exists on a spectrum. And, your idea is more in that direction than the GP's.
It's a good thing that people have to work to afford life. The product of that work is the betterment of humanity. It either improves our living conditions or enriches our experience. We need people to work. And, unfortunately, the vast majority of us (and I would put myself at the top of this list) need the threat of a painful life to get us to perform at our best.
Now, there are certainly those that are unable to provide for themselves. And, you point out many that would fit in that category. We certainly should make sure that those are taken care of. And, like you say, those that can be educated and elevated should be. Those that can't, we have to care for them too.
But, we have to be able to distinguish those that truly need the help from those that can elevate themselves but refuse to become motivated. It is a moral evil against humanity to allow someone to stay in a ditch when they don't have to. It is an afront to those that are truly in need to not compel those that can contribute to do so. They take away resources from those that truly need them. They also have the ability inside them to rise up and give back to further help those in need.
I agree with you and the GP. The problem is that we have to understand that both approaches are valid and required to be "part of the solution." All we are doing in theses discussions are "preaching and being self-righteous". All we are doing is dividing for the sake of philosophy rather than finding common ground and understanding that we all and all of our ideas are needed to fix these things.
So you've shown that religion isn't necessary for violence. I don't think that's what anyone is saying. Would you say it's easier or harder to organize a violent effort when religion is involved?
It's easier when power is involved. Without power or the desire for power, there's very little violence to be had.
So, yes. It's easier to organize violent effort with religion. It's also easier with government. All you need is someone with power that uses propaganda to create in-groups and out-groups. Ratchet it up and you get your violence.
So, if you want little violence, you need to ensure that power is never concentrated. Unfortunately, we like our religion... and for those that don't, we like our government...
Well but then you're not talking about religion but something else. What you're referring to is that its fairly easy to get humans to rally around any sort of idea or belief, and then paint their group as being under attack, which will provoke a defense response. Its a fundamental human nature that gave us a competitive advantage when we were still just small groups strewn about the globe.
I think people give religion too much credit. Religion is not some special-case organization, but rather a simple result of the mental quirks that evolved in humans to help us survive. You can see a lot of the behavior from people who adhere strongly to political parties, racial-supremacy groups, nations (nationalism), and even sports teams. Even the religion-is-bad crowd says a lot of shit that is stunningly similar to a lot of stuff that the religious crowd puts out.
The reality is that its a problem with humanity, not a problem with religious people. Religion just tends to be an easy and comfortable target to project their fears and anger on. Kind-of like the atheist version of Satan and heathens, so to speak. Of course, recognizing that its a human condition brings up all sorts of uncomfortable truths.
Exactly. And Slashdot illustrates this point everyday. People choose a side and it's us vs. them. We get the capitalists v. socialists, unions/small guy/whatever oppressed group v. the corporations, democrats v. republicans, MS v. Linux v. Apple, etc.
We've all got our dogma and refuse to ever truly question OUR side. After all, we're the one's that are right. Those other guys are just evil and selfish...
I'm not going to be presumptuous and assume that you're socialist just because you jumped on the gp.
You make a great point that government does have a role in any society. And it's really moot for anyone to argue for an entirely free market society anyway. It's never going to happen.
So, given that, we have to figure out what government does best and what it doesn't do best.
The interstate highway system was a military project. The intent of Eisenhower was to build the capability to move troops and equipment as quickly as possible to strategic places around the country. He got the idea from Germany which had done the same thing. Private use was just a nice side benefit. Without the military purpose, it wouldn't have happened.
The government didn't build the railroad system. That was built by private companies. It's become much more nationalized now, though, which explains why we don't have high speed railway service in the vast majority of our country. We're stuck with the ineffective government backed bureaucracy of Amtrak. And, government regulations prevent it from being viable for private companies to develop an alternative to the government monopoly.
The only people that would disagree about the government being in the military business just want them to do everything except military.
And, other than the progress made in the 1960's, which was also because of military-ish chest thumping, the space program has been sadly underachieving as compared to where private companies have progressed in only the last few years with substantially lower budgets. Sure, you can argue that NASA laid the ground work, but what the hell have they done with it?
And, I'd hardly compare Columbus being funded by the king and queen of Spain as being "publicly" funded. When you have an autocracy, you can cut out the bureaucracy. It doesn't take weeks of committees, debates, votes and signatures. Democracy does.
So, I agree that government has a role. And, the example of police and fire companies I think is probably a good one. Of course, their success is due to the fact that they are locally controlled and managed. They're not wrapped up in a bureaucracy. Their roles and objectives are clear and unambiguous.
When you take an incredibly large and ambiguous objective and hand it over to an even larger and more ambiguous government bureaucracy, that's where the problem comes in. In software engineering, we call these concepts scope and requirements definition.
So, what should be the scope of government, with respect to YOURCAUSEHERE? And what are the requirements?
Anyone who's worked on a variety of projects of varying size can tell you that the bigger the scope, the more likely the requirements can't be met... at least effectively. Sure, you can keep throwing money at it. That's what bankrupts companies... and governments.
RE the "free market", that's exactly why I proceeded the phrase by "so-called". Just like "clean coal" and "jumbo shrimp", it flat doesn't exist. And as far an people going bankrupt because they can't afford to stay alive any other way, I for one see absolutely NOTHING "nice to know" surrounding that sad state of affairs. In 2008, in the wealthiest country on the planet, when people get vetted at an intake station at a hospital as to whether or not they have any health insurance, which literally determines what level of care they get, I call that a meat grinder.
You're absolutely right. The US does not have a free market health care system. U.S. government programs accounted for over 45% of health care expenditures, making the U.S. government the largest insurer in the nation. Per capita spending on health care by the U.S. government placed it among the top ten highest spenders among United Nations member countries in 2004. And, most of the other parts of it are managed by private insurance companies.
Now we can debate night and day about whether or not health care is something that is the governments responsibility or not. I'm just looking at the economics here. Whether it's an insurance company bureaucracy or a government bureaucracy doesn't really matter to me. The bureaucracy is the problem.
Just a couple of generations back, there was virtually no one that had health insurance. If you got sick, you went to the doctor and paid him out of your pocket. Then because of different employment regulations and to lower operating costs while retaining and recruiting talent, businesses started using health insurance as an employer provided benefit.
Initially, it was just for major problems that would be too large to come out of pocket for. That was to prevent the bankruptcy issue you're discussing. But, the insurance companies were smart and they convinced the employers to expand coverage while they expanded their role and influence in the medical industry.
And so, you get to what we have today, which is health "insurance" isn't insurance at all. It's a health care payment plan. That was what the insurance companies wanted to do with the system and they succeeded.
The problem is the number of people involved in even making the most minor doctor visits possible. The doctors had to hire people to handle billing the insurance companies. The insurance companies have to have people to handle the payments. They have to have a staff of doctors to review and approve "necessary" procedures. And, you can never leave out all the lawyers and sales people (like they would let you).
So now, instead of paying the doctor to take a look at you and write you a prescription, you have to pay the doctor, his employees, the insurance company, its employees and of course all the lawyers required to make sure that no one gets sued.
The best thing for health care is to get the bureaucracies out of it. Let the patients pay the doctor for their service. Keep insurance, whether private or government provided, for only the catastrophic situations that would cause someone to be financially ruined. Then the costs would go down.
Insurance companies like the high costs because it keeps them in a position where they're needed. So, they set the prices. Just look at any insurance statement you get and you'll see that they pay what they want. If they get out of things, then the doctors can cut staff that aren't helping patients. They can cut prices and make things more affordable. Then, the free market will be managing the costs.
Now, I'm sure that many would start pointing out that the expansion of insurance coverage can be demonstrated as working to better things because of the life expectancy now as compared to the past when people paid directly for their health care. I would argue that the expectancy has changed because of technological improvements much more so than an
...and anyone who wants to stream decent quality video, and anyone who wants unfiltered access, and anyone who wants to use decent quality VOIP applications, and anyone who wants to game with decent latencies, and anyone who wants good USENET access (yeah, all three of them)... The point is that there are many reasons why you would want to pay for extra bandwidth. The point of the service is to offer basic service. There's no reason for it to grow beyond that. If you think it necessarily MUST grow beyond that, I have to ask why aren't food stamp programs paying for EVERYONE'S food now?
That's not how government services work, though. If someone had suggested 15 years ago that the government should provide Internet service, most people would have thought it was insane. And now, the expectation is just for basic service. At some point, all of those other features have to be provided because they too will become "necessary" for everyone to have.
I'm not commenting here on whether or not government should or should not be doing this. I'm just saying that your argument that the "free" service is just going to be basic is only a temporary one. Any argument that can be made for providing the basic service now will be used later for the others.
Government influence only expands. It never shrinks.
Any argument for confiscating someone else's property and giving it to someone else for health care is easily extended to anything I've requested.
Eh, you one of those "tax is theft" people?
You said stealing. I didn't. I said confiscating. If someone takes something from you at the point of a gun (don't pay your taxes and see if that's the case), then it certainly can't be considered voluntary. It's much closer to theft than charity, whether you like that reality or not.
I'm simply taking these arguments to their logical conclusions. As things become more commonly available, at some point we decide that they are essential and people can not be allowed to exist without them. So, then we decide that it is acceptable to take other people's property and provide people with these "essential" things.
You want taxes and social spending because it what makes a sizable middle class. Even if you're the biggest self-centered elitist on the planet, you want public spending because it means more educated workers and more customers for whatever business you are in or are invested in.
Huh? I don't understand how social spending makes a sizable middle class. I find your educational reason to be laughable considering that per-capita the US spends more on education than anywhere else in the world, yet our students rank very low compared to other industrialized nations.
I'm not arguing against taxes and spending in absolute terms. My argument is that you can't just throw money at problems. Our politicians use money to buy votes. They don't give a damn about making sure it's being used properly. They can just say that they increased spending on X by X billion dollars. So, then people think they give a shit about fixing things. The government doesn't have to compete for anything with anyone. It can do whatever it likes. So, why the hell is this the place we want to expand power. Let's get some accountability in place and maybe actually see some of these grand programs that keep getting created actually succeed before we throw more money to the greedy bastards.
Name for me one significant impact, large size program that has actually achieved something positive relative to the tons of money that has been pumped in and we can have a discussion. The problem is that the government has consistently demonstrated that it fucks things up and wastes ungodly amounts of resources that could be better used elsewhere.
Say what you want about rich people, but the one's I know are much less obsessed with money than most of the poor people I know.
Great, so they'll have no problem when we bring back the 91% marginal tax rates then.
And hopefully no one else will have a problem with the 17% inflation and 21% mortgage rates that accompanied those tax rates.
Hooray for stagflation!
Any argument for confiscating someone else's property and giving it to someone else for health care is easily extended to anything I've requested.
It's not a straw man argument. 100 years ago, health care was essentially shit for all. The poorest among us today have much better than back then. The reason people make the argument for everyone to have equal health care is because of this vague term called "fair". It's not "fair" if we have the capability to heal people that we don't take other people's property and heal people.
It used to be the same thing for feeding people. Food used to be scarce for virtually all. Now, we wouldn't imagine taking someone else's property to keep someone from starving.
I'm simply taking these arguments to their logical conclusions. As things become more commonly available, at some point we decide that they are essential and people can not be allowed to exist without them. So, then we decide that it is acceptable to take other people's property and provide people with these "essential" things.
It used to be food, which I can understand. Now, it's health care, which is borderline offensive. Don't think that the next thing isn't Internet. The conversations are already happening.
In the past, people were governed by religious restrictions. Those sucked, but they worked to keep people essentially honest. After that, people got personal freedom. Then, the consequences of stupidity and stupid choices kept people in line. And now, we're trying to legislate those away.
I don't mind providing people some help when they have misfortune. I don't mind giving people the means to improve themselves and their situation. However, if we remove the disincentive to making poor decisions, we're not helping people. We're condemning them to a life that very likely offers nothing positive to society. We're creating black holes of productivity by telling kids, "it's ok if you fuck off school and just work at the burger joint. We're going to make sure everything you need is provided for."
Stupidity and laziness SHOULD be difficult and as utterly painful as possible. That provides people motivation to do something with themselves.
Now, I'm not saying the end all be all of existence is being a workaholic only pursuing the almighty dollar. But, I am saying that the end all be all is definitely not being a fuck off and pursuing someone else's almighty dollars.
Say what you want about rich people, but the one's I know are much less obsessed with money than most of the poor people I know. The reason why is that they've already learned that money is not what makes you happy in life. Those that haven't had it think it's going to solve everything. That's why this whole thing won't stop with health care. They'll get that and still be unhappy. So, they'll take more and more (look, only the top 5% is going to have to pay, right?) until there's nothing left and still won't be happy.
That's not going to stop the politicians from using that card to keep getting elected, though.
Not every story has two sides.
None do. Unfortunately, our press and our political system have conditioned us into the "us vs them" mentality. So, Americans only think there are two sides. And, they vote accordingly.
I imagine if he'd shown Kerry's concession speech to an audience 4 years ago, they'd at least be a few boos. It's easy to be graceful about losing 4 years ago when you just won. And, it's easy to be bitter about a loss you took just a few days ago. I'm not trying to defend any R's. I'm just pointing out that recency of a loss matters and it's easy to not be bitter if it's a relatively distant past loss accompanied by a very recent win.
I imagine if he'd shown Nixon's 1960 concession speech to Kennedy that the R's wouldn't have booed either.
It's not a reflection of party. You can't expect ANYONE to be over things that did get as bitter as they did that quickly. Come on, I still hear plenty of D's whining about 2000. I don't blame them because they're Democrats. I blame them because they need to just get over it. The past is gone. Things have "changed."
Conservatives need to get over this nonsense idea that rich business owners are the hardest-working members of society and the only ones who deserve all the perks. My salary is not determined entirely by how hard I work; a large part involves market forces outside my control. I'd be a moron to not realize that I'm at least a little bit lucky. This argument over who is working the hardest does not favor the wealthy.
I'm with you. Just because other people earn more money doesn't mean they're more deserving of it. I should be able to be that guy that just works at McD's and can go home after my shift and chill on the couch. And if I do, I should still get the same benefits I get today, because it's only fair. Everyone deserves to have full health care and those rich SOB's don't deserve all that money they have anyway.
And, of course, to be able to make it to work, I need some wheels, too. And since it's only fair that I have the same right to work as those lazy fucking rich bastards, we should take more of their money so that I can have a car to drive to McD's.
And, it's also not fair that they have these huge McMansions (no offense to my prospective employer) that they don't need. So, they could at least cut off a little more of their pie to get me a nice 3 br/2 ba spot. It's the American dream after all. We all deserve a nice place to call our own.
And, since in our modern world it's almost impossible to stay completely informed without Internet and cable tv, I need to have a nice computer, broadband, a tv and cable service. It's only fair. Those elitist rich bastards have their wireless Internets with their overpriced Macbooks. They can afford to give me a piece.
If we're going to be fair, god damn it, let's be fair. Don't tell me I'm being absurd for asking for all of it. These things are standard for our modern society, just like health care. Don't tell me those cheating rich fuckers can't afford it. And I deserve it because I'm breathing.
Amerocentrism bad, eurocentrism good!
Where do you think the US learned it's ethnocentricity from anyway? As you so cleverly point out with your quip, they're just as blind to other perspectives as we are... and just as uppity about being "right" too.
If you're going to (permanently) break the 12pm = sun overhead, 12am = midnight relation, why not just ignore timezones and use UTC instead? The problem is how the time you start and stop work relates to the time that the sun rises and sets... what name you give those times doesn't matter.
As a pilot, I have no problem with this idea. With light activities, all we use is UTC. I've actually gotten quite used to adding 5 (or 4 during EDT) hours to think in UTC.
You simply have to understand that the more power you give whomever, the more corrupt they will become.
There, fixed that for you...
why have democracy at all?
Very good question...
But to elaborate a bit more, I think the argument comes down to scope. Should every uniformed person, which unfortunately is the majority, have the ability to decide what everyone else's rules are?
The whole point of the US founders was that political power should be localized. People who live together and know each other by name are much less likely to engage in the tyranny of majority. When we nationalize power, we get to remove the face from our opposition and are therefore more likely to abuse that power. Instead of Joe and Susan, we now talk about "the rich" or the "deadbeats on welfare."
When we know these people by name, that changes things. We're less likely to make decisions that would severely hurt those that we know than we would those anonymous evil people that can easily be demonized.
There's no problem with democracy as long as each person is familiar with the others. It works great in smaller groups. It just doesn't scale very well. Because, as soon as you can create an imaginary boogey man for people to focus on instead of the real people, you will start getting irrationality. And, unfortunately, even without pure democracy, our system has already begun down that slippery slope.
So, I'm all tired with the craziness here in the U.S., but now my two main options Ireland and Australia are getting crazy with their Internet blocking and monitoring. Where the hell am I supposed to go to get some freedom?
The article makes the interesting point that our founding forefathers considered secret balloting cowardly. Clearly they did not anticipate violence as a tactic to tamper with elections. Our founding forefathers thought it was important to include an amendment stating that you could not be forced to quarter troops against your will in times of peace, clearly not anticipating that it would not really be an issue today. Some of our founding forefathers thought that slavery was alright. Not all of our founding forefathers thought separation of church and state as we take it today was a good idea.
It always strikes me as strange that people take the constitution as more than just a set of generally good ideas and precedents written by talented individuals. People act like because our founding forefathers said X, it was handed down by God himself.
I usually run up against this when the constitution seems to disagree with my liberal leanings (I'm sure someone will want to get into a pointless discussion of the second amendment, but we've all been down that road), but it's not limited to just that, and I'm sure it runs both ways.
More specific to elections though, isn't it about time we abolished the electoral college and go right to a popular vote? There is clearly no legitimate reason for it to still be around. Electors rarely switch their votes, and, as the article points out, the founders saying it's a good idea does not make it so.
I agree... to an extent. The electoral college is a joke and the founders were far from perfect in creating the system. However, I'd have to say they did fairly well for their time period.
Personally, I think we should do away entirely with the election of POTUS. We place way too much emphasis on what can be done by the president. The position is really just about running government from day to day. The real power of our system lies in congress.
I'd prefer to see us switch to a parlimentary system where the president is chosen by the Congress. Then, people would actually take note of their congress critters and do a better job (I'd hope) of keeping them in line. They're really the ones that can screw us. The president is mostly a figure head bureaucratic position. He doesn't make laws. He is responsible for enforcing them. However, he doesn't even have the power to decide who's guilty of breaking them or not. That's left to the Judiciary.
The entire president pop show really just distracts people from paying attention to those that have the real power. The re-election rate for Congress is somewhere near 90%. That's because we've been fooled into thinking that they aren't as important as POTUS.
What we need to get is a proper perspective on where REAL change (not the bumper sticker/empty platitude kind) can occur. Keep sending the same old politicians back to Congress and nothings going to change except what specifics they use to keep the people distracted.
Your head is either in the clouds, or in the sand. If you think X pushed X for any purpose but the acquisition of power, you're doing a great job of ignoring nearly all of history. Defending X because he's your political party is the sincerest imitation of soviet era politics, but so is destroying human rights for the sake of security.
There... fixed that for you...
Don't expect the Democrats or their supporters to act any differently than the Republicans and their supporters...
We had a retard in the oval office for 8 years...
That says much more about the electorate than it does the president. Maybe we need to rethink just letting everyone vote because they're old enough and breathing? Maybe the ballots should include some test questions to see if you actually have a clue about what's going on in the world before your vote gets to count. Sure, I'll get the arguments that everyone should be able to vote because it's "fair". If you take that position, you have no right to bitch about Bush being president... or Obama if you're on the other side of the fence.
This analysis reminds me of discussions taking place around 2000, when the prevailing wisdom was that it would not make one bit of difference who got elected. We were wrong then, and you are wrong now.
Really? So, what did Gore do differently? Sure, he talks a different game now, but he's not the president. Everyone that takes that office tends to end up being a little different than what you thought they were going to be. I seriously doubt Gore would be the same in office as he is as an advocate. You have to be the president of the whole country, not just your specific special interests. Gore would have went to Afghanistan after 9/11. And the D's were just as eager to jump on the Iraq bandwagon after that as the R's. You can argue that Gore wouldn't have pushed the issue as hard, but the US was as a majority still blood-thirsty after Afghanistan because we still didn't feel like we'd been vindicated. Iraq was popular in 2003 and not that much can be attributed to Bush. The undercurrent was there. Gore might not have went to Iraq, but he'd have had to go somewhere because no politician is going to deny the people something like that because they know it gets them the votes they need.
And sure, you can argue that Bush was a big neo-con. But, he, along with the Republicans, did create the Medicare prescription drug benefit. That's hardly what the people that were voting for him on the Republican side were cheering for. In fact, he took a lot of criticism for that as well as his "no child left behind" programs from his side of the spectrum.
The fact is, no one governs completely from their side of the spectrum and gets 2 terms. The reality of being president is much different than the sales pitch you give when you're trying to get votes. Just watch how Obama does it after he takes office. If he pushes too hard to his side, the D's will lose Congress in 2 years. If he doesn't move to the center, he'll be out in 4.
We're in a 48%/48% country. The other 4% will react against anything they perceive as ideological blindfolds. That's what happened to Clinton in '94 and to Bush in '06. As much as people like to put their guy up on a pedestal, in the end, they're all politicians. All they really care about is getting and keeping power. So, watch how Obama handles things once he's got the keys.
The US is *bloody broken* after 8 years of "conservative" rule, including six years of absolute power, something the "liberals" haven't had for 30 years or so.
Uhh... the democrats did actually have the White House and both houses of Congress from 1993-1995. That's actually only about 13 years. Also, they did have the presidency and both houses of Congress from 77-81, by the end of which time inflation was at 17% and many people were getting mortgages that were at 21%.
Sure, the Republicans have screwed up. But, there is zero argument that full control in the other direction is any better. If anything, the 90's showed us that a moderate Democrat president and a moderately conservative congress (we have to ignore the whole Lewinski thing... it didn't really do anything but create political drama) is probably about the best we're going to get with the two-party duopoly our system seems to be stuck with.