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Sifo
| Posted on Friday, February 26, 2010 - 05:05 pm: |
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Vouchers are not always the answer. It sounds good in principle but it is much more complicated. My wife teaches 4th grade at an inner city school in Hammond Indiana. Her school is well funded and has some very good teachers. However, in many cases to kids and parents are a big problem. Many of the kids come into 1st grade way behind. Most of the parents will not participate, facilitate homework, properly feed the kids or make the kids attend school. There are many kids that move back and forth between school districts on a regular basis. Getting a report card signed is a month long process. Books are always getting lost (The school replaces for free). They are lucky to get 15% of the class to pass the IN standard tests. The others are many grades behind. Much of what you are describing can be attributed to the 'free' mentality of public schools. When a parent is 'paying' to have their kids in school they feel like they have some skin in the game and want their moneys worth. I know this would lead to the poor not being able to afford education, so I'm not advocating this as a solution, but I wonder if there is some middle ground where you can get a parent to feel they need to get involved. Even a symbolic voucher could at least get a parent to maybe think about the value of the education their kids are getting. Illinois toll roads well maintained? I'm always glad when my fillings are still in when I get across the state line. Well maintained and always under construction are very different things. I would be thrilled if they would lay a surface down that would last long enough to not need to be redone by the time they get to the other end of the tollway. It does supply a great government paid gig to the company that gets the job every year as long as they kick back money into the correct political coffers. |
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Mountainstorm
| Posted on Sunday, February 28, 2010 - 03:55 pm: |
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Yeah lets get rid of libraries too. They are more evil socialism. And roads. I can't see any good coming from publicly funding the repair of our roads or bridges...it's just a downward spiral into more evil. Medicaid? More socialism: old people should be taken care of by their young...it's God's will. Public transportation? More evil. Buses and trains? Let those poor people walk to work: it'll cure the obesity problem. Sometimes I wonder if you rightwing wack jobs ever step back and listen to the ridiculous things that come out of your mouthes? You'd think that America suddenly changed in the past year...and it has not. It's still the same progressive and idealistic nation it was a year ago. No more...no less. |
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Sifo
| Posted on Sunday, February 28, 2010 - 04:08 pm: |
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Yeah lets get rid of libraries too. They are more evil socialism. And roads. I can't see any good coming from publicly funding the repair of our roads or bridges...it's just a downward spiral into more evil. Medicaid? More socialism: old people should be taken care of by their young...it's God's will. Public transportation? More evil. Buses and trains? Let those poor people walk to work: it'll cure the obesity problem. Sometimes I wonder if you rightwing wack jobs ever step back and listen to the ridiculous things that come out of your mouthes? Strawman argument: A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man |
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Brumbear
| Posted on Sunday, February 28, 2010 - 06:52 pm: |
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdOaP68cgaA |
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Hootowl
| Posted on Monday, March 01, 2010 - 11:01 am: |
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"This means greater than half the voting population are socialist." "...Depends on the turn out. In the last UK election, I think there was something pathetic like a 53% turn-out" Again, "This means greater than half the voting population are socialist." |
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M1combat
| Posted on Monday, March 01, 2010 - 01:16 pm: |
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"Sometimes I wonder if you rightwing wack jobs ever step back and listen to the ridiculous things that come out of your mouthes? " Uhhh... There's a pretty sizable and fundamental disconnect between what us "Right Wing WhackJobs" feel is a useful and/or necessary use of public money and what the more liberally tilted folks feel concerning the same. That said... Public roads, libraries, bridges, medical care for the elderly, public transpo... All good things. That's "giving to the people" for the most part. However... Giving to the "person" is generally quite different. I know... I know... You'll erect a bunch of straw men and try to put a bunch of words in my keyboard, but it seems the facts point to you just not understanding the conservative mind set. You just think you know how we think ... Good luck with that. |
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Arcticktm
| Posted on Monday, March 01, 2010 - 01:32 pm: |
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Am I the only one that finds a conflict between the true definition of socialism and a strike? If a place were truly 100% socialist, then wouldn't a strike be pointless, since everything would be collected by the central authority and re-distributed equally amongst all? Hard to say, since it has never really been taken to that extreme. I don't recall a lot of strikes in the days of the old USSR. I'll stay (way) out of all the back and forth on current administration vs old one, but it just seems that the term socialism is being pretty badly misused lately. I suppose the original post point was that once you get used to an entitlement, it is hard/traumatic to get it removed. Not quite sure it is reasonable to say that Greece has collapsed, though they certainly have a self-created mess on there hands. Then again, who doesn't these days? |
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Throttlepansy
| Posted on Monday, March 01, 2010 - 04:36 pm: |
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"Again, "This means greater than half the voting population are socialist." True...I misread that as "half the population are socialist". But then, that's democracy, isn't it? |
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Hootowl
| Posted on Monday, March 01, 2010 - 04:48 pm: |
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Yes, it is. Fortunately we don't live in a democracy, we live in a republic which theoretically respects the rule of law, not the will of the majority. In a democracy, 9 people could vote to steal the tenth person's money, and it would be OK. Not so in a republic...oh wait, that is happening here too. |
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M2me
| Posted on Monday, March 01, 2010 - 09:26 pm: |
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Strawman argument: A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. This entire thread is a straw man argument. Greece is not a socialist country and Greece did not collapse in violence. |
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Blake
| Posted on Monday, March 01, 2010 - 10:20 pm: |
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Dunno about them being socialist or not, but they didn't collapse in violence. |
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Tom_b
| Posted on Monday, March 01, 2010 - 11:31 pm: |
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I don't think there was an "collapse " going on. having lived in Athens for 3 years saw more violence when the two local soccer teams played one another. Greece is not a "Socialist " govt. People there are REQUIRED to vote. People vote for the govt. they want |
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Cityxslicker
| Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 - 12:38 pm: |
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Medicare Old people Medicaid Poor people Social Security Old & Disabled People Now go show me which of these were in affect during one of the biggest economic expansions of the country. Show me the social programs in the 20's.... and I will show you Prohibition, Nazis, Communists, and Dying Imperialist that took on too much. The problem with entitlement is it becomes the ever creeping insidious syphon from production, wealth, freedom. If you dont see it, go open your last check.... tell me that if you didnt have all of the money back (times the number of years you have been WORKING) that you couldnt plan better and provide better for yourself than some administration committee filled with beauracrats and petty clerks. .... There ought to be an OPT out. If you believe that the greater good, is of no good to you (me) you should not have to pay for it, cant use it, cant receive benefits from it. dont get me started on the IRS. |
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Blake
| Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 - 01:03 pm: |
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Tom, Having the vote does not preclude a government from being Socialist, in fact that is one of the aims of a Socialist movement, to gain the most votes and secure entitlements for the majority of voters so that their Socialist policies/entitlements are guaranteed to remain in force. |
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Cravacor
| Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 - 01:10 pm: |
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Ah yes, the "Roaring 20's" those were the good old days. Wealth was being consolidated, the environment was being rapidly exploited. Workers were being treated so well by folks like Andrew Carnegie & the Pinkertons, the stock market was running wild with speculation, causing the the largest economic downturn in history... that's what we need to get back to! ![](http://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/clipart/dielaughing.gif) |
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Buellkowski
| Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 - 02:04 pm: |
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Study the term "mixed economy." It's the economic model in use by virtually every developed, industrialized economy on the planet. The formula of the mix is merely a matter of national taste and budget. Greek politicians on both sides apparently had no political will to limit the growth of their public sector until now, when forced to do so. The same economic "crisis" response (as opposed to a thoughtful "plan") can be seen in other recent examples. Free-market competition for scarce resources without a doubt yields the greatest benefits. Yet a fair playing field is necessary to allow the greatest possible opportunity for access to the competition. Without enforcement of economic rules and provision of public commercial infrastructure by popularly elected governments, descent into oligarchy is a distinct risk. And history in fact does teach us how that has led to strife at gunpoint. |
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Throttlepansy
| Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 - 02:49 pm: |
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"Fortunately we don't live in a democracy" Oh..sorry, I thought you were. Don't you all get a vote, to elect representatives? Isn't that a "representative democracy". I thought republic meant you just didn't have a monarch... Do tell... |
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Aesquire
| Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 - 07:28 pm: |
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A Pure Democracy, as practiced in Athens, ( back in the days of Socrates ) is, all in all, a bad thing. Not, usually as bad as monarchy, ( though you sometimes get a great king... Trouble is the grandkid is usually a waste) but has built in evils. A great orator can sway the crowd to vote for really bad things, war, economic bad ideas, tearing down the walls now that our last enemy is defeated.... the list is long. ( For a good account of pure Democracy gone bad, read "A war Like No Other" a history of the peloponnesian war, by V.D.Hansen. ) A Republic ( a Representative state with democratically elected representatives ) has representatives vote on the day to day matters, and not the easily led crowd. Although far from perfect, it, if constituted properly, has checks & balances that hopefully keep the bad guys from doing too much damage. The problem comes when the crowd finds it can vote itself other's wealth. It does so in a republic by electing evil reps, and we've had our share in the 20th century. In the UK you've still got a Monarch, but I understand you haven't let them run things in a while. Imagine a town with a majority of immigrants, say from Saudi Arabia, and you've got pure democracy in the town. They could easily vote to ban women from driving. ( make a joke on that one, go ahead, but it's not funny in reality. ) |
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M2me
| Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 - 09:08 pm: |
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There ought to be an OPT out. If you believe that the greater good, is of no good to you (me) you should not have to pay for it, cant use it, cant receive benefits from it. dont get me started on the IRS. Being an American citizen brings you many privileges and benefits. But it also has obligations. You must obey the law, pay your taxes, etc. The social contract is not cafeteria style where you can pick and choose which clauses you'll honor. It's all or nothing. In a republic, nobody is above the law. If you don't like a particular clause like Social Security, marijuana laws, or whatever, you have the right to support and vote for candidates who share your views and will hopefully change the law. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. That's just the way it is. But nobody has the right to unilaterally opt out of clauses they don't like. That's anarchy. |
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Blake
| Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 - 10:57 pm: |
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Round about 1776 King George was trying to convince our nation's founders that... Being a British citizen brings you many privileges and benefits. But it also has obligations. You must obey the law, pay your taxes, etc. I, like Jefferson, am for anarchy if/when needed in order to refresh the tree of liberty. |
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Blake
| Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 - 11:09 pm: |
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John, Are you willing to fight and possibly die in order to protect what you imagine is the "social contract" in America? Yes or no? I ask, because I know a LOT of people, including me, who should the need arise are absolutely willing to fight and possibly die in order to reinstate the rule of law according to our constitution and in opposition to your beloved "social contract". Will you stand in armed opposition to us? Having our hard earned profits confiscated under threat of imprisonment in order to be redistributed to others that liars, idiots, and fools in Washington deem more deserving is not anything that was ever intended in our constitution by our nation's founders. Period. Unfortunately, "Progressives" like you have achieved a lot of the very intentional "progress" towards socializing our federal government and implementing what you call "social justice." It is evil power-mongering and anti-American in the truest sense. I and others have about had enough of it. |
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Mountainstorm
| Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 07:32 am: |
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Consider this time-tested truth: just because you have an opinion does not mean it's right. Are you willing to die for an opinion? There's no more truth to your opinion than anyone else. Unless you are the second coming of Christ or something and I missed it you are just another guy with a computer pounding keys. Quite possibly in a pink diaper. There is nothing funnier to me than a grumpy old man shaking his fist at the internet. Everyone that disagrees with you is a liar "and will be dealt with severely" LMAO. Dude. You spend so much time online (judging from this board at least) do you even get down to the target range to blow the cobwebs off your gat? How far could you march? All the way to Washington...or maybe just across the living room to the keyboard Live the dream Blake: lead the teabaggers to bloody insurrection! I'll look for you on Fox News. |
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Hootowl
| Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 09:24 am: |
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Throttlepansy, There's not much to tell. The USA has a republican (little R) form of government, not a democratic (little D) one. It's just a fact. |
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Throttlepansy
| Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 02:37 pm: |
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I get you. Sorry, wasn't being deliberately obtuse, it just seemed a weird statement!... We're just 2 cultures divided by a common language!![](http://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/clipart/google.gif) |
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M2me
| Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 08:44 pm: |
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Round about 1776 King George was trying to convince our nation's founders that... You, and the teabaggers, really need a refresher course on history. What the colonists were upset about was not taxation, they were upset about taxation without representation. The colonists had no representation in the British Parliament and yet the Parliament had the power to impose taxes on the colonists. This is what the original Tea Party was about. Modern day teabaggers seem ignorant of this fact. They seem to think that the original Boston Tea Party was a protest of taxation itself, it wasn't. American citizens have representation in Congress as well as their local and state governments. |
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Sifo
| Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 08:52 pm: |
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They were upset over many things. Taxation without representation is the grade school version.
quote:The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature. He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation: For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states: For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world: For imposing taxes on us without our consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury: For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses: For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies: For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments: For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends. We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
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M2me
| Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 09:00 pm: |
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Are you willing to fight and possibly die in order to protect what you imagine is the "social contract" in America? Why is everything about fighting and dying with you? America is, for the most part, not about fighting and dying. It's about voting and compromising and give and take. We don't solve our problems with fighting and revolutions and coups. The founding fathers understood that that type of government tends to be very unstable. Our success has been made possible because of our stability, because of our ability to have peaceful transitions of power, not because of our willingness to fight and die for what we believe, but our willingness to compromise and find middle ground. That's the true source of strength for America. |
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Buellinmke
| Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 09:40 pm: |
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I'm literally sitting here loling at you guys talking about fighting and dying for the country which has been stolen from you. Have you guys tried listening to the garbage you post here? You sound delusional! I'll let you all in on a little secret - you're all a bunch of old white men and the only fight you have left is trying to catch your breath after copying and pasting walls of text of fringe political opinion on your 1993-era discus message board dedicated to a defunct motorcycle brand. Fortunately for this country, you and the others that think like you are a very small fraction of a dying breed. Good riddance to your ignorance, close-mindedness, and unwillingness to help your fellow man. |
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Sifo
| Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 10:01 pm: |
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Useful idiots. |
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M2me
| Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 10:01 pm: |
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I'll let you all in on a little secret - you're all a bunch of old white men and the only fight you have left is trying to catch your breath after copying and pasting walls of text of fringe political opinion on your 1993-era discus message board dedicated to a defunct motorcycle brand. Oh my God, that is priceless! That is absolutely hilarious! I need to catch my breath after copying that text. I'm a little winded. But after that, I'll be ready to fight and die!
For Buellinmke |
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