[besson3c]

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

The US is a constitutional republic, not a democracy and it is this fact that would make America unique in its governance.

What I want to know is why it's virtually impossible for liberals to complain about conservative ignorance without displaying it?

I applaud you for finding this gotcha with what I wrote, it must feel as satisfying as finding a spelling mistake in somebody's post calling somebody else dumb, but it is irrelevant to the spirit of what I wrote. The spirit of what I wrote was about how electing your leaders is not rare, and among first world countries dictatorships are. That US politicians have a constitution to uphold is a technicality of the design of this government, but you'll note what I wrote was in response to:

I think in many other countries people never knew anything but a dictatorship and have gotten used to it or given up on it.

I would say that all countries with democratically elected leaders, and there are many of them, know something other than a dictatorship. That is my point.

[subego]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

That US politicians have a constitution to upload

I hope not to The Pirate Bay.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by el chupacabra 

I don't know what specific morals you don't like here; if you think Im using the word in a religious sense Im not. Fair and right means people shouldn't vote for candidates/policy just because the numbers look bigger to their personal bank account. i.e. "I'm going to vote dem because they'll force companies to give me $9/hr rather than $7.. yayy me" Or Im going to vote dem because they promise to give me x dollars more for doing less. Thats not right; doesn't make economical sense.

I think what you meant to write then was that people should stop posting for purely self-serving, selfish reasons?

I agree here, but I think if you are going to provide examples of unfairness you should bring up some contrasting examples such as big banks being allowed the privilege of bailouts, being too big to fail, and lower interest rates than smaller banks to make the point that unfairness can and does work both ways. This way your point itself will be fair.

However, that is not what I meant with what I wrote. I think populism and this sort of pandering works with many voters, but it also isn't too difficult to make the argument that too much anti-business legislation deprives us from jobs. I'm sure you'd feel that this argument isn't terribly effective with voters, perhaps populism does have an edge, but I don't think that all of this is completely clear cut. Perhaps it depends on the area, because there are tons of voters who seem to vote against their best personal interests too. For instance, why do many southern state voters vote Republican when many live in poverty and various disadvantages?

Nobody has built wealth based on how much min wage or handouts they get. They should support business friendly policy since it makes it easier for them to be hired so they can get their foot in the door faster.

There is a balance, it isn't a good idea to take what you are saying here too far either. I'm not saying this in respect to the minimum wage, but that too much of this sort of attitude resulting in big business effectively writing legislation, something resembling an aristocracy forming is not good either.

We are not getting any bang for our buck when we make money so easy to certain classes of democrats that there's little incentive to work anymore.

This is a flawed statement. Most Americans are apolitical, meaning that it would be more accurate to substitute "Americans" with Democrats. Besides, there are plenty of political conservatives utilizing our safety nets, let's not make caricatures out of these people.

I see where your coming from now. This is matter of perspective. Maybe the society you wish to see looks better with minimal slums and poor people. From the purely mathematical point of view of many "rich", this is 100% wrong. If we look at the history of other nations we see class suppression; the more poor you have; worked out great for the few wealthy ruling elite. Best to have a desperate slave class of people, desperate to work for the next gov/corporate stipend, than a middle class who may have even a small voice or bit of free time to stand up to you... Even worse a middle class who competes with you driving prices up. Why do the wealthy favor outsourcing to China so much? Thats just 1 of many examples, I could come up with.

I think it's more of a matter of finding a balance, and not trying to pinpoint one variable out of all of this and make absolute statements. If one takes something too far in any direction, bad things will happen, and even if one takes something a short distance in some direction, all sorts of things will happen too as direct and extremely indirect consequences too. My point is that we need to figure out where this balance best resides without clouding our vision and judgment with emotional pleas, fear-mongering, and the sorts of rhetoric that we can't go a day without hearing in our government today.

I don't want to screw the poor or cut them off completely. But the gov's free handouts arent giving them any extra skill, or adding economic value in any way. At the very least the gov could hire them themselves or for a company 'like some other countries do'. Many people just get paid to sit at home... and have babies. Instead of giving trillions to do nothing; Why not, pay their education, apprenticeship, hire them to dig a giant hole, for hadron collider, for few billion. I mean insert ANYTHING

I can't really have this conversation with somebody if they come at it this way because I disagree with this simplification. I'm not against welfare reform or any sort of discussion that examines these balances, but there is a lot more to this picture than this.

Sure there are people with a despicable welfare dependency, but there are also people who depend on welfare for reasons most people can be more empathetic to. Health care in this country is a complex mess, having disabilities a serious disadvantage, veterans treatment another problem. I'm not saying that the solution is unconditional handouts, or that one can't succeed with these constraints, nor am I excusing despicable behavior. I'm just saying that we shouldn't paint with too broad a brush, because this is lazy, and while perhaps satisfying, does not consistently account for all of these situations.

Then again, if you want to make the argument that tweaking that balance will represent the best cold, hard mathematical best path as far as policy goes, that's fine, I could be on board with that, I would just want to know more other than that there are abusers. I don't doubt that there are.

That's exactly what Lenin said. Cold hard numbers say kill the leeches, kill the disabled, kill the ones we decide are weak or not doing what we think is important. Obviously I dont think you support any of that, but that's what opening this can of worms (look just at cold hard numbers, no morals or emotions) logically ends at.

That sounds more like Stalin to me.

I don't think this is where opening that can of worms ends at though. Killing off a population can be very expensive. What was implicit with what I said is that we need to look at the cold hard numbers as they apply to the entire population, without favoring one part of it over the other.

Having wrote what I said about not painting welfare dependents with too broad a brush, you might be surprised to hear that I'm okay with killing off a part of the population though, particularly the stupid and useless part of it That being said, like I said, unfortunately this can be very expensive. For starters, while on the path to being killed off, consider how this will bloat our health care costs if we don't turn these people away from the ER, how it will impact crime, etc. I'm not saying this is a good thing, this is not an emotional statement, but simply an "it is what it is" sort of statement.

Democracies are not the norm around the world at all. We can split hairs over whether it's technically called a dictatorship or some other similar term. You speak like theres so many 1st world counties out there. The number of countries that are even remotely in the same league as US I can count on 1 hand. The US has a higher standard of living than most (arguably all) countries in Europe, all countries in South America, Central America, Caribbean, all but 1 country in Asia, Africa, Mid east.... Im not sure about Australia-New Zealand; but from what I understand Aus provides no where near the opportunity of the US nor does it have access to the conveniences we do. Much of this come back on self centered behavior of their governments. Governments who did the math... but only looked at it as how it affects the well being of the elite

Democratically elected leadership is the norm in well developed countries. Hell, even Iraq technically might have democratically elected leaders now.

The definition of a first world country is not whether their overall GDP is in the league of the US's, nor is it some sort of competition. The US is an obvious leader with the combination of its economy and population. A first world country has more to do with *thresholds* of overall standards of living. For instance, if having some disposable income for entertainment is in the realm of possibility for the middle class, this is probably a first world country. A country that consumes the same movies, video games, etc. as we do is probably a first world country. This includes much of Europe, Japan, Canada, and Australia, and probably others. Within this class of nations, democratically elected leaders are the norm.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by subego 

I hope not to The Pirate Bay.

Heh

[besson3c]

Speaking of relationships, there is probably a relationship between doing what is mathematically/economically best for our entire population without favoring one part of it over another with what is morally right. If you are a conservative, this is a nod to the beauty of the free market in a sense, only though the lens of the truthful notion that providing opportunity to the poor to a certain extent best serves the free market. If you'd disagree with this you'd have to account for the many rags to riches stories that have existed, and what our country would look like if these stories had no means to exist.

I think many conservatives understand this and agree, but to me these concepts often seem to get swallowed up by emotional rhetoric either ragging on the poor, the safety nets, or pushing the envelope towards big business-friendly legislation with seemingly no concession and/or acknowledgement of balance. To be fair, all sorts of understanding on the left, of which there are a number of examples I could cite, gets swallowed up by emotional rhetoric too.

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I applaud you for finding this gotcha with what I wrote, it must feel as satisfying as finding a spelling mistake in somebody's post calling somebody else dumb, but it is irrelevant to the spirit of what I wrote. The spirit of what I wrote was about how electing your leaders is not rare, and among first world countries dictatorships are. That US politicians have a constitution to uphold is a technicality of the design of this government, but you'll note what I wrote was in response to:



I would say that all countries with democratically elected leaders, and there are many of them, know something other than a dictatorship. That is my point.

So, you can make the point without ad hom. Just checking. Thank you.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

So, you can make the point without ad hom. Just checking. Thank you.

I said the statement was ignorant, not that the poster was actually ignorant.

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I applaud you for finding this gotcha with what I wrote, it must feel as satisfying as finding a spelling mistake in somebody's post calling somebody else dumb, but it is irrelevant to the spirit of what I wrote. The spirit of what I wrote was about how electing your leaders is not rare, and among first world countries dictatorships are.

What dictatorships currently in existence were not voted in democratically?

[el chupacabra]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I agree here, but I think if you are going to provide examples of unfairness you should bring up some contrasting examples such as big banks being allowed the privilege of bailouts, being too big to fail, and lower interest rates than smaller banks to make the point that unfairness can and does work both ways. This way your point itself will be fair.

My point itself is fair then; I did bring that up when I said....

chupacabra
"The government could have given the bailouts to the poor, to pay their mortgage; But what did they actually do? Who lost and who won? This goes back to what I said about who's big government really going to try to please."

My disgust with the wallstreet bailouts, is demonstrated by the fact I talk about it in almost every topic.

If a bailout HAD to happen I would have preferred it to be to the middle class and poor. The wheels of our economy would have kept on turning, people would NOT have been foreclosed on and class disparity would have moved in a positive direction.

Bailouts are used for wealth redistribution; and what they did was a massive wealth redistribution from the middle class and poor, unto... not the wealthy.... but the wealthiest.. the heads of multimillion dollar casinos. This is a perfect example of why not to trust your government. They pulled this ridiculousness blatantly right before everyone's eyes and the liberal half still refuses to see that their government doesn't work for them, and the more power they cede to it, the less it works for them; if that doesn't break your trust of them I don't know what can. Economics isn't rocket science. The US is enacting policy that walks in the exact same foot steps of many oppressive nations throughout history. Economically oppressive that is. There is no mystery of whats going to happen. That's why us conservatives are so vehement.

The US government is so BIG, the only thing it has to fear is the largest corporations and special interests. And that was demonstrated perfectly with the continued bailout. That's why I want it to shrink. Did a decision of whether to bail out banks or the-poor/middle-class require a mathematical calculation? No, this is where morality and doing whats right comes in.

When I talk about "fairness", in part Im saying when these "poor" people show up at the polls to vote to extort petty change from just "the-rich" and put in their own pockets.... not only is their motive lazy and selfish... More importantly it hurts them in the long run allowing them to be oppressed even further. The poor should be voting for opportunity, that allows them to climb the ladders. Not believing in fantasy that mass foodstamps/welfare will ever bring them to the level of middle class.

but it also isn't too difficult to make the argument that too much anti-business legislation deprives us from jobs.

It most definitely deprives us of jobs; too much red tape in the firing/hiring process forces business to be too careful about hiring in the first place.

Anti-business legislation applies mostly to small businesses. The gov is friends with the big ones. A big business can get permits stamped for anything if its application talks about such silly things as saving walruses in the arctic. What are we paying government for again? I hope all the democrats haven't forgotten about that one already. Big oil pays millions in permit fees to the gov for them to go over the plans and make sure it's done right. That's right, these services isn't paid for by income tax. I still haven't figured out what big service we get that justifies trillions in income tax.

there are tons of voters who seem to vote against their best personal interests too. For instance, why do many southern state voters vote Republican when many live in poverty and various disadvantages?

Because voting conservative is in the best interest of getting out of poverty. Voting dem is in the best interest if you want a FREE government stipend for the rest of your life. I actually don't know who the-poor vote for in the south; there's probably a demographic factor as well.

There is a balance, it isn't a good idea to take what you are saying here too far either. I'm not saying this in respect to the minimum wage, but that too much of this sort of attitude resulting in big business effectively writing legislation, something resembling an aristocracy forming is not good either.

Big business already writes our legislation.... in my opinion for both parties. I believe our government should have its role greatly diminished to a police mediator between companies, people, special interests and trade. Right now they pretend to police big business, while taking money from them. and pick and choose the winners/losers. I firmly believe that if real capitalism is allowed to happen bad business big or not will destroy itself with minimal policing from government. What we see is our government routinely protecting bad business.

I think it's more of a matter of finding a balance, and not trying to pinpoint one variable out of all of this and make absolute statements. If one takes something too far in any direction, bad things will happen, and even if one takes something a short distance in some direction, all sorts of things will happen too as direct and extremely indirect consequences too.

isn't it out of balance to the extreme right now? With our handouts, our spending, all the programs the umbrella gov takes on?

My point is that we need to figure out where this balance best resides without clouding our vision and judgment with emotional pleas, fear-mongering, and the sorts of rhetoric that we can't go a day without hearing in our government today.

Here are some of the programs under our umbrella fed government.
Info: List of US Federal Government Funding Programs

Balance is the key word, and this is where we fundamentally disagree. The problem is nothing stays in balance as implied by the word itself. It is too risky to be allowing our government so responsibility; so much power considering the constant maintenance and calibration of sorts that is constantly required to keep it in working balance. With great responsibility comes great power. This why I believe it needs to go back to basics.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by el chupacabra 

Because voting conservative is in the best interest of getting out of poverty. Voting dem is in the best interest if you want a FREE government stipend for the rest of your life. I actually don't know who the-poor vote for in the south; there's probably a demographic factor as well.

You are still over-simplifying things. Voting conservative *can* be in the best interest of getting out of poverty, as can voting liberal depending on what balance is being struck. Conservative policy that is very uber-rich friendly and less middle class friendly might be less effective and attractive than legislation that is designed to provide a boost to the middle class/poor. It all depends on the approach that is being taken, I don't think anything is universally true here - it is most certainly possible to go too far in any direction.

Big business already writes our legislation.... in my opinion for both parties. I believe our government should have its role greatly diminished to a police mediator between companies, people, special interests and trade. Right now they pretend to police big business, while taking money from them. and pick and choose the winners/losers. I firmly believe that if real capitalism is allowed to happen bad business big or not will destroy itself with minimal policing from government. What we see is our government routinely protecting bad business.

isn't it out of balance to the extreme right now? With our handouts, our spending, all the programs the umbrella gov takes on?

I'd say so, but I'd say it goes both ways, including big business writing legislation, like you said.

Balance is the key word, and this is where we fundamentally disagree. The problem is nothing stays in balance as implied by the word itself. It is too risky to be allowing our government so responsibility; so much power considering the constant maintenance and calibration of sorts that is constantly required to keep it in working balance. With great responsibility comes great power. This why I believe it needs to go back to basics.

I don't understand how this comes on the heels of your acknowledging that big business is writing legislation. If you take power away from the government, wouldn't this just amplify the problem if they had free reign?

I'd say the solution can be giving the government less power, I'm not against that, but I'd rather focus on making government be far better than it is acknowledging that we really do need it to play a role. I don't buy into these fantasies of free (unregulated) market utopia that would come about with a neutered government.

[el chupacabra]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I can't really have this conversation with somebody if they come at it this way because I disagree with this simplification. I'm not against welfare reform or any sort of discussion that examines these balances, but there is a lot more to this picture than this.

Im not oversimplifying it, but I do believe in simplifying government and all its policy and legislation to a level all 150 mil voters will take the time to read and understand.

Sure there are people with a despicable welfare dependency,

This is the norm; just because some people don't believe it, doesn't make it oversimplification.

but there are also people who depend on welfare for reasons most people can be more empathetic to. Health care in this country is a complex mess, having disabilities a serious disadvantage, veterans treatment another problem.

I am empathetic to these people; As I said in one of my first posts; I say either don't touch their benefits or give them more. It doesn't require a huge reform or much research to figure out who's disabled and has a legit reason to get assistance.

I'm not saying that the solution is unconditional handouts,

But that's what we have now

or that one can't succeed with these constraints, nor am I excusing despicable behavior. I'm just saying that we shouldn't paint with too broad a brush, because this is lazy, and while perhaps satisfying, does not consistently account for all of these situations.

I may be painting with a broad brush but Im not sure you're seeing the correct color of my paint. I never said to cut everyone off. But I have done my own research and know at this point that the majority on the system are abusing it. We have homeless centers; irresponsible professionals who got laid off and didn't save, end up in them, after a few weeks they learn their lesson and find a new job new place to live. It works. As I said in another post, there's people in 3rd world countries who make more money, work less hours, take 3 month vacations/yr, dropped out in the 6th grade, just doing simple labor that anyone can do.... I've seen it over and over time and time again with my own eyes so it's gong to be hard to convince me it can't be done or doesn't exist. No gov handouts necessary for them. If people did that in the US they'd be rich. I don't want poor people to starve; but common, how many of these poor welfare/foodstamp people have rims and spinners that cost more than my car... You don't have to do in depth investigation to see how many have no trouble affording what they WUUANT.

What was implicit with what I said is that we need to look at the cold hard numbers as they apply to the entire population, without favoring one part of it over the other.

I agree

you might be surprised to hear that I'm okay with killing off a part of the population though, particularly the stupid and useless part of it That being said, like I said, unfortunately this can be very expensive. For starters, while on the path to being killed off, consider how this will bloat our health care costs if we don't turn these people away from the ER, how it will impact crime, etc. I'm not saying this is a good thing, this is not an emotional statement, but simply an "it is what it is" sort of statement.

It wouldn't be expensive. Imagine the money saved if we just killed off the jails tomorrow. Crime would go down since people would fear execution.

Democratically elected leadership is the norm in well developed countries. Hell, even Iraq technically might have democratically elected leaders now.

We weren't talking about whether leaders in most the world were democratically elected or not. The comments concerned nations being dictatorships. Whether or not a nation had elections has no bearing on whether or not it's a dictatorship; If a government dictates it's a dictatorship.

The definition of a first world country is not whether their overall GDP is in the league of the US's, nor is it some sort of competition. The US is an obvious leader with the combination of its economy and population. A first world country has more to do with *thresholds* of overall standards of living. For instance, if having some disposable income for entertainment is in the realm of possibility for the middle class, this is probably a first world country.

I agree. I wasn't talking about their GDP. It's all about standard of living. And I still stand by what I said about very few nations in the world being in the same league as the US; as standard of living goes. We really don't have enough 1st world countries to draw statistical significance of how they should be with what I consider their "experimental" policies. I know many liberals think we're just being brainwashed patriots for saying this: but I really don't like spending any amount of time in Europe beyond a 2 week vacation. The US crushes it in just about every aspect to me so I will never vote to be more like Europe. This isn't American centric. I'd truly rather live in Ecuador or Panama than Europe.

A country that consumes the same movies, video games, etc. as we do is probably a first world country. This includes much of Europe, Japan, Canada, and Australia, and probably others.

And when I walk down the streets of most of Europe I see slum dog millionaire type slaves within an hour of landing and continuously from that point on. I see graffiti even in the good parts of town, it's not as safe as the US, sewage in the streets, overpriced, people seem broke as hell and overall feel is rundown poorly maintained everything. Exceptions to the rule are France, Swiss, Germany, Lux etc; but even they aren't that great. This isn't a standard of living to strive for in my opinion. There are localized places in Europe that are nicer than the average US... But there are nice places in the US that are better than the average US.

Having said all that I'm willing for the sake of argument, to pretend some of these EU nations are up to the level of the US in standard of living, even though I think thats cheating.

Voting conservative *can* be in the best interest of getting out of poverty, as can voting liberal depending on what balance is being struck. Conservative policy that is very uber-rich friendly and less middle class friendly might be less effective and attractive than legislation that is designed to provide a boost to the middle class/poor.

Unfortunately this is where I have to crawl into my hole. To me conservative and republican are not synonymous at all. And lately it seems the republicans only act sensible when they're not in power. Im willing to admit my fellow "conservatives" have failed me and I wish liberals would see this in their own party too. And this is where I say republicans that support "uber-rich" friendly legislation aren't true conservatives. Legislation shouldn't be friendly or unfriendly to rich or anyone. All people should have the same opportunity. This is what government should be focusing on; providing people opportunity; protecting opportunity, not stipends, free money, subsidies, tax breaks, write-offs, permit fees etc. Why does legislation always have to be about 'who we're going to steal from and who we're going to redistribute free money to"? Our politics have become a battle of who gets the money. Currently I see our government stealing opportunities from everyone who arn't big and powerful enough to pat their financial back.

I don't understand how this comes on the heels of your acknowledging that big business is writing legislation. If you take power away from the government, wouldn't this just amplify the problem if they had free reign?

No, it would allow the people to control the government; as many individuals. The government could be a vessel for the people rather than for big business. The people actually could have a lot of power to then leverage through their government. I understand the classical thinking; "if we want to beat up a big guy we need a bigger guy"; but I don't think that works here as the big boys have realized it's in their best interest to become friends and don't have any reason to obey their masters anymore.

I don't buy into these fantasies of free (unregulated) market utopia that would come about with a neutered government.

Nor should you. Conservative don't believe in utopia. We realize in the real world things will never be perfect for everybody, There's going to be great hardships; and we wish liberals would come to terms with this reality as well.

What we see is the more idealists try to make everything perfect, by adding bureaucracies because they see some horrendous event or scenario; the worse the whole system gets for everybody.

And then we wish we could just go back to the days of standard imperfection and great hardships that we could blame on nature rather than the system picking and choosing the winners/losers.