A Fulfillment of Prophecy?

[Sunshine]

you didnt debunk anything

Zat right?

http://www.usmessageboard.com/relig...re-is-nyc-s-list-of-christian-terrorists.html

 

[Mustang]

For instance, this paragraph from the July essay:

The whole point of the collectivist mindset is to concentrate power in the hands of the collectivists -- which is to say, to take away our freedom. They do this in stages, starting with some group that others envy or resent -- Jews in Nazi Germany, capitalists in the Soviet Union, foreign investors in Third World countries that confiscate their investments and call this theft "nationalization."​

So who does Obama and his rhetorical army work to get the people to envy or resent?

The wealthy
The business owners
The evangelical Christians
The Tea Party
Fox News
Rush Limbaugh et al
Any media that is doing its job

And we have seen as documented in the "Phony Scandals?" thread, in some way or another, Obama or his spokespeople have targeted all these groups at one time or another. By marginalizing, discrediting, or in the case of some using the government to silence dissenting voices. But too few seem sufficiently outraged so these incidents are usually just a ripple in the news cycle and are quickly buried and forgotten under more current news. And I believe that too is by intentional design. That phenomenon did not occur much during the Bush administration--anything that could be criticized or scandalized stayed on the front pages for weeks and months and was continued into this administration.

This is dangerous folks. And is almost assured that those freedoms and liberties will continue to erode, chip by chip, almost unnoticable day by day. Sort of like watching weeds grow or snow melt. You can't really see it happen but sooner or later you look out and the weeds have taken over or the snow that was there is gone.

Q. Wanna know what REALLY takes away your freedom?

A. Keepin' you poor!

In the last couple of decades, as jobs have been outsourced, wages have dropped, and it's harder to make a living wage in America. And with the price of higher education going up (Up 500% since 1985), it's harder for parents and their kids to afford an education which allows them to move up economically.

All of this pushes down wages, even as the cost of living is going up. So, what's your choice? It's to take what you're offered even as the income gap in America is widening.

The poor have less freedom and fewer choices than anyone else, and they pay more for what they manage to get. They pay higher interest rates. They pay higher prices for grocery bills if they can't drive to other stores. They pay exorbitant rates for rent, and the poverty rate is going up. Now, why would the poverty rate be going up when the rich are doing so damn well?

I don't argue that engineered poverty is a freedom robbing mechanism used by many would-be dictators or other totalitarian governments. And those who presume that government is the proper vehicle to eradicate poverty may or may not have noble motives. But as Thomas Sowell pointed out in those essays in the OP, and in his book The Vision of the Anointed, the lefitsts/statists/progressives/political class are unable to see the consequences of the government salvation they promote. The vision of an ideal, for instance, somebody like a Barack Obama is unable to relate to the reality. And for no group has the reality been more devastating than it has been to the poor.

Why is the poverty rate going up when the rich are doing well? As Sowell points out again and again, the government has engineered that very scenario by presuming that it can order our society better than the private sector can or will.

Excerpted from an essay Sowell wrote in 2004:

August 20th marks the 40th anniversary of one of the major turning points in American social history. That was the date on which President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation creating his “War on Poverty” program in 1964.

Never had there been such a comprehensive program to tackle poverty at its roots, to offer more opportunities to those starting out in life, to rehabilitate those who had fallen by the wayside, and to make dependent people self-supporting. Its intentions were the best. But we know what road is paved with good intentions.

The War on Poverty represented the crowning triumph of the liberal vision of society — and of government programs as the solution to social problems. The disastrous consequences that followed have made the word “liberal” so much of a political liability that today even candidates with long left-wing track records have evaded or denied that designation.

In the liberal vision, slums bred crime. But brand-new government housing projects almost immediately became new centers of crime and quickly degenerated into new slums. Many of these projects later had to be demolished. Unfortunately, the assumptions behind those projects were not demolished, but live on in other disastrous programs, such as Section 8 housing.

Rates of teenage pregnancy and venereal disease had been going down for years before the new 1960s attitudes toward sex spread rapidly through the schools, helped by War on Poverty money. These downward trends suddenly reversed and skyrocketed.

The murder rate had also been going down, for decades, and in 1960 was just under half of what it had been in 1934. Then the new 1960s policies toward curing the “root causes” of crime and creating new “rights” for criminals began. Rates of violent crime, including murder, skyrocketed.

The black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life.

Government social programs such as the War on Poverty were considered a way to reduce urban riots. Such programs increased sharply during the 1960s. So did urban riots. Later, during the Reagan administration, which was denounced for not promoting social programs, there were far fewer urban riots.
War on Poverty Revisited | Capitalism MagazineCapitalism Magazine

What do these groups all have in common?
The wealthy
The business owners
The evangelical Christians
The Tea Party
Fox News
Rush Limbaugh et al
Any media that is doing its job

They have in common that they look to the private sector, to individual initiative and ability, to liberty and unfettered genius and not to government to accomplish things. And they resent a government that is less than efficient and/or effective in accomplishing much of anything while it throws up more and more roadblocks to prevent the private sector from accomplishing anything. That makes them unacceptable in a Barack Obama vision.

I earlier challenged you to choose any point from any of those essays in the OP and show how Sowell was incorrect or wrong. You blew me off as has every other leftist/progressive/statist/political class who has posted in this thread. The leftist etc. vision of an ideal is not to challenged under the cold, hard light of reality--there must be no critical examination of the actual results/effect/consequences of what is intended to achieve that ideal. And most leftists etc. simply cannot or will not participate in such an examination.

The challenge remains nevertheless.

Sowell is such a tool. I could point numerous parts where he draws conclusion which is not warranted based on the historical facts.

The new sexual attitudes weren't 'helped' by the war on poverty money. It was helped along by the invention of the pill which completely changed the sexual landscape in the era of the baby boom generation which tended to reject their parents values at the time of the Vietnam War which just so happened to have an involuntary draft even as college deferments left the rich out of the fight because they could hide away at school or in the Texas Air National Guard, for that matter.

And do you know what I think that list has the most in common. They're overwhelmingly conservative WASPs.

 

[TemplarKormac]

For instance, this paragraph from the July essay:

The whole point of the collectivist mindset is to concentrate power in the hands of the collectivists -- which is to say, to take away our freedom. They do this in stages, starting with some group that others envy or resent -- Jews in Nazi Germany, capitalists in the Soviet Union, foreign investors in Third World countries that confiscate their investments and call this theft "nationalization."​

So who does Obama and his rhetorical army work to get the people to envy or resent?

The wealthy
The business owners
The evangelical Christians
The Tea Party
Fox News
Rush Limbaugh et al
Any media that is doing its job

And we have seen as documented in the "Phony Scandals?" thread, in some way or another, Obama or his spokespeople have targeted all these groups at one time or another. By marginalizing, discrediting, or in the case of some using the government to silence dissenting voices. But too few seem sufficiently outraged so these incidents are usually just a ripple in the news cycle and are quickly buried and forgotten under more current news. And I believe that too is by intentional design. That phenomenon did not occur much during the Bush administration--anything that could be criticized or scandalized stayed on the front pages for weeks and months and was continued into this administration.

This is dangerous folks. And is almost assured that those freedoms and liberties will continue to erode, chip by chip, almost unnoticable day by day. Sort of like watching weeds grow or snow melt. You can't really see it happen but sooner or later you look out and the weeds have taken over or the snow that was there is gone.

Q. Wanna know what REALLY takes away your freedom?

A. Keepin' you poor!

In the last couple of decades, as jobs have been outsourced, wages have dropped, and it's harder to make a living wage in America. And with the price of higher education going up (Up 500% since 1985), it's harder for parents and their kids to afford an education which allows them to move up economically.

All of this pushes down wages, even as the cost of living is going up. So, what's your choice? It's to take what you're offered even as the income gap in America is widening.

The poor have less freedom and fewer choices than anyone else, and they pay more for what they manage to get. They pay higher interest rates. They pay higher prices for grocery bills if they can't drive to other stores. They pay exorbitant rates for rent, and the poverty rate is going up. Now, why would the poverty rate be going up when the rich are doing so damn well?

Alright. While I'm not debating the fact that poor people are poor, I don't see how they are being specifically targeted by anyone because of being poor. You can show me a law that favors the rich, and I can find you TEN that favor the poor, namely entitlement programs.

But then I must question your hostility towards the rich. Are they part of this ploy to deprive the poor of their choices? I don't understand this constant vilification of prosperity. You want the poor to prosper, but then you begrudge the rich their right to prosper. There is a colossal double standard here that cannot be reconciled.

For if a poor man were to become prosperous, he would be no better than the rich man, if I interpret this correctly. That doesn't jive. It appears to me you wish for it to go both ways.

 

[Sunshine]

Q. Wanna know what REALLY takes away your freedom?

A. Keepin' you poor!

In the last couple of decades, as jobs have been outsourced, wages have dropped, and it's harder to make a living wage in America. And with the price of higher education going up (Up 500% since 1985), it's harder for parents and their kids to afford an education which allows them to move up economically.

All of this pushes down wages, even as the cost of living is going up. So, what's your choice? It's to take what you're offered even as the income gap in America is widening.

The poor have less freedom and fewer choices than anyone else, and they pay more for what they manage to get. They pay higher interest rates. They pay higher prices for grocery bills if they can't drive to other stores. They pay exorbitant rates for rent, and the poverty rate is going up. Now, why would the poverty rate be going up when the rich are doing so damn well?

I don't argue that engineered poverty is a freedom robbing mechanism used by many would-be dictators or other totalitarian governments. And those who presume that government is the proper vehicle to eradicate poverty may or may not have noble motives. But as Thomas Sowell pointed out in those essays in the OP, and in his book The Vision of the Anointed, the lefitsts/statists/progressives/political class are unable to see the consequences of the government salvation they promote. The vision of an ideal, for instance, somebody like a Barack Obama is unable to relate to the reality. And for no group has the reality been more devastating than it has been to the poor.

Why is the poverty rate going up when the rich are doing well? As Sowell points out again and again, the government has engineered that very scenario by presuming that it can order our society better than the private sector can or will.

Excerpted from an essay Sowell wrote in 2004:

August 20th marks the 40th anniversary of one of the major turning points in American social history. That was the date on which President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation creating his “War on Poverty” program in 1964.

Never had there been such a comprehensive program to tackle poverty at its roots, to offer more opportunities to those starting out in life, to rehabilitate those who had fallen by the wayside, and to make dependent people self-supporting. Its intentions were the best. But we know what road is paved with good intentions.

The War on Poverty represented the crowning triumph of the liberal vision of society — and of government programs as the solution to social problems. The disastrous consequences that followed have made the word “liberal” so much of a political liability that today even candidates with long left-wing track records have evaded or denied that designation.

In the liberal vision, slums bred crime. But brand-new government housing projects almost immediately became new centers of crime and quickly degenerated into new slums. Many of these projects later had to be demolished. Unfortunately, the assumptions behind those projects were not demolished, but live on in other disastrous programs, such as Section 8 housing.

Rates of teenage pregnancy and venereal disease had been going down for years before the new 1960s attitudes toward sex spread rapidly through the schools, helped by War on Poverty money. These downward trends suddenly reversed and skyrocketed.

The murder rate had also been going down, for decades, and in 1960 was just under half of what it had been in 1934. Then the new 1960s policies toward curing the “root causes” of crime and creating new “rights” for criminals began. Rates of violent crime, including murder, skyrocketed.

The black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life.

Government social programs such as the War on Poverty were considered a way to reduce urban riots. Such programs increased sharply during the 1960s. So did urban riots. Later, during the Reagan administration, which was denounced for not promoting social programs, there were far fewer urban riots.
War on Poverty Revisited | Capitalism MagazineCapitalism Magazine

What do these groups all have in common?
The wealthy
The business owners
The evangelical Christians
The Tea Party
Fox News
Rush Limbaugh et al
Any media that is doing its job

They have in common that they look to the private sector, to individual initiative and ability, to liberty and unfettered genius and not to government to accomplish things. And they resent a government that is less than efficient and/or effective in accomplishing much of anything while it throws up more and more roadblocks to prevent the private sector from accomplishing anything. That makes them unacceptable in a Barack Obama vision.

I earlier challenged you to choose any point from any of those essays in the OP and show how Sowell was incorrect or wrong. You blew me off as has every other leftist/progressive/statist/political class who has posted in this thread. The leftist etc. vision of an ideal is not to challenged under the cold, hard light of reality--there must be no critical examination of the actual results/effect/consequences of what is intended to achieve that ideal. And most leftists etc. simply cannot or will not participate in such an examination.

The challenge remains nevertheless.

Sowell is such a tool. I could point numerous parts where he draws conclusion which is not warranted based on the historical facts.

The new sexual attitudes weren't 'helped' by the war on poverty money. It was helped along by the invention of the pill which completely changed the sexual landscape in the era of the baby boom generation which tended to reject their parents values at the time of the Vietnam War which just so happened to have an involuntary draft even as college deferments left the rich out of the fight because they could hide away at school or in the Texas Air National Guard, for that matter.

And do you know what I think that list has the most in common. They're overwhelmingly conservative WASPs.

But the people who are poor and on benefits are not using 'the pill', they are having baby after baby to get more and more benefits. So, those programs certainly did change the sexual attitudes and destroy the family in the welfare community.

 

[The T]

So... how are we keeping people poor exactly?

Why is it that many of those who are in poverty or whatnot haven't gotten a job or looked for one? Oh that's right, the incentive to remain unemployed and thus poor lies with entitlements, which are pushed by none other than the Democrats, you.

Should you care about the poor, you would encourage them to get a job, provide for themselves, and sever their dependency on the government. They are being kept poor by their dependence on government, not by the Republicans. Pure and simple, Mustang.

Give a man a fish he eats for a day. TEACH a man to fish he eats for a lifetime. Simplistic? Perhaps. Truth usually is.

 

[Sunshine]

For instance, this paragraph from the July essay:

The whole point of the collectivist mindset is to concentrate power in the hands of the collectivists -- which is to say, to take away our freedom. They do this in stages, starting with some group that others envy or resent -- Jews in Nazi Germany, capitalists in the Soviet Union, foreign investors in Third World countries that confiscate their investments and call this theft "nationalization."​

So who does Obama and his rhetorical army work to get the people to envy or resent?

The wealthy
The business owners
The evangelical Christians
The Tea Party
Fox News
Rush Limbaugh et al
Any media that is doing its job

And we have seen as documented in the "Phony Scandals?" thread, in some way or another, Obama or his spokespeople have targeted all these groups at one time or another. By marginalizing, discrediting, or in the case of some using the government to silence dissenting voices. But too few seem sufficiently outraged so these incidents are usually just a ripple in the news cycle and are quickly buried and forgotten under more current news. And I believe that too is by intentional design. That phenomenon did not occur much during the Bush administration--anything that could be criticized or scandalized stayed on the front pages for weeks and months and was continued into this administration.

This is dangerous folks. And is almost assured that those freedoms and liberties will continue to erode, chip by chip, almost unnoticable day by day. Sort of like watching weeds grow or snow melt. You can't really see it happen but sooner or later you look out and the weeds have taken over or the snow that was there is gone.

Q. Wanna know what REALLY takes away your freedom?

A. Keepin' you poor!

In the last couple of decades, as jobs have been outsourced, wages have dropped, and it's harder to make a living wage in America. And with the price of higher education going up (Up 500% since 1985), it's harder for parents and their kids to afford an education which allows them to move up economically.

All of this pushes down wages, even as the cost of living is going up. So, what's your choice? It's to take what you're offered even as the income gap in America is widening.

The poor have less freedom and fewer choices than anyone else, and they pay more for what they manage to get. They pay higher interest rates. They pay higher prices for grocery bills if they can't drive to other stores. They pay exorbitant rates for rent, and the poverty rate is going up. Now, why would the poverty rate be going up when the rich are doing so damn well?

Alright. While I'm not debating the fact that poor people are poor, I don't see how they are being specifically targeted by anyone because of being poor. You can show me a law that favors the rich, and I can find you TEN that favor the poor, namely entitlement programs.

But then I must question your hostility towards the rich. Are they part of this ploy to deprive the poor of their choices? I don't understand this constant vilification of prosperity. You want the poor to prosper, but then you begrudge the rich their right to prosper. There is a colossal double standard here that cannot be reconciled.

For if a poor man were to become prosperous, he would be no better than the rich man, if I interpret this correctly. That doesn't jive. It appears to me you wish for it to go both ways.

Commerce is the life blood of this nation. Our laws favor commerce. Just a little fact I garnered in law school.

 

[Foxfyre]

Q. Wanna know what REALLY takes away your freedom?

A. Keepin' you poor!

In the last couple of decades, as jobs have been outsourced, wages have dropped, and it's harder to make a living wage in America. And with the price of higher education going up (Up 500% since 1985), it's harder for parents and their kids to afford an education which allows them to move up economically.

All of this pushes down wages, even as the cost of living is going up. So, what's your choice? It's to take what you're offered even as the income gap in America is widening.

The poor have less freedom and fewer choices than anyone else, and they pay more for what they manage to get. They pay higher interest rates. They pay higher prices for grocery bills if they can't drive to other stores. They pay exorbitant rates for rent, and the poverty rate is going up. Now, why would the poverty rate be going up when the rich are doing so damn well?

I don't argue that engineered poverty is a freedom robbing mechanism used by many would-be dictators or other totalitarian governments. And those who presume that government is the proper vehicle to eradicate poverty may or may not have noble motives. But as Thomas Sowell pointed out in those essays in the OP, and in his book The Vision of the Anointed, the lefitsts/statists/progressives/political class are unable to see the consequences of the government salvation they promote. The vision of an ideal, for instance, somebody like a Barack Obama is unable to relate to the reality. And for no group has the reality been more devastating than it has been to the poor.

Why is the poverty rate going up when the rich are doing well? As Sowell points out again and again, the government has engineered that very scenario by presuming that it can order our society better than the private sector can or will.

Excerpted from an essay Sowell wrote in 2004:

August 20th marks the 40th anniversary of one of the major turning points in American social history. That was the date on which President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation creating his “War on Poverty” program in 1964.

Never had there been such a comprehensive program to tackle poverty at its roots, to offer more opportunities to those starting out in life, to rehabilitate those who had fallen by the wayside, and to make dependent people self-supporting. Its intentions were the best. But we know what road is paved with good intentions.

The War on Poverty represented the crowning triumph of the liberal vision of society — and of government programs as the solution to social problems. The disastrous consequences that followed have made the word “liberal” so much of a political liability that today even candidates with long left-wing track records have evaded or denied that designation.

In the liberal vision, slums bred crime. But brand-new government housing projects almost immediately became new centers of crime and quickly degenerated into new slums. Many of these projects later had to be demolished. Unfortunately, the assumptions behind those projects were not demolished, but live on in other disastrous programs, such as Section 8 housing.

Rates of teenage pregnancy and venereal disease had been going down for years before the new 1960s attitudes toward sex spread rapidly through the schools, helped by War on Poverty money. These downward trends suddenly reversed and skyrocketed.

The murder rate had also been going down, for decades, and in 1960 was just under half of what it had been in 1934. Then the new 1960s policies toward curing the “root causes” of crime and creating new “rights” for criminals began. Rates of violent crime, including murder, skyrocketed.

The black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life.

Government social programs such as the War on Poverty were considered a way to reduce urban riots. Such programs increased sharply during the 1960s. So did urban riots. Later, during the Reagan administration, which was denounced for not promoting social programs, there were far fewer urban riots.
War on Poverty Revisited | Capitalism MagazineCapitalism Magazine

What do these groups all have in common?
The wealthy
The business owners
The evangelical Christians
The Tea Party
Fox News
Rush Limbaugh et al
Any media that is doing its job

They have in common that they look to the private sector, to individual initiative and ability, to liberty and unfettered genius and not to government to accomplish things. And they resent a government that is less than efficient and/or effective in accomplishing much of anything while it throws up more and more roadblocks to prevent the private sector from accomplishing anything. That makes them unacceptable in a Barack Obama vision.

I earlier challenged you to choose any point from any of those essays in the OP and show how Sowell was incorrect or wrong. You blew me off as has every other leftist/progressive/statist/political class who has posted in this thread. The leftist etc. vision of an ideal is not to challenged under the cold, hard light of reality--there must be no critical examination of the actual results/effect/consequences of what is intended to achieve that ideal. And most leftists etc. simply cannot or will not participate in such an examination.

The challenge remains nevertheless.

Sowell is such a tool. I could point numerous parts where he draws conclusion which is not warranted based on the historical facts.

The new sexual attitudes weren't 'helped' by the war on poverty money. It was helped along by the invention of the pill which completely changed the sexual landscape in the era of the baby boom generation which tended to reject their parents values at the time of the Vietnam War which just so happened to have an involuntary draft even as college deferments left the rich out of the fight because they could hide away at school or in the Texas Air National Guard, for that matter.

And do you know what I think that list has the most in common. They're overwhelmingly conservative WASPs.

So you can refute Sowell's assertion that the War on Poverty had no affect on those sexual attitudes? Good I would like to see that evidence. But I warn you, Sowell does his homework before he writes this stuff. He is such a prolific writer, it is inevitable he will misspeak or be in error somewhere though, so maybe you have found a hole in the argument.

But a tool? How so? Again, can you take any statement, in context, from any of those essays in the OP and show how they were wrong? Or show how I am wrong that those essays were prophetic in what we would get with a Barack Obama presidency?

 

[Sunshine]

Sowell is such a tool. I could point numerous parts where he draws conclusion which is not warranted based on the historical facts.

The new sexual attitudes weren't 'helped' by the war on poverty money. It was helped along by the invention of the pill which completely changed the sexual landscape in the era of the baby boom generation which tended to reject their parents values at the time of the Vietnam War which just so happened to have an involuntary draft even as college deferments left the rich out of the fight because they could hide away at school or in the Texas Air National Guard, for that matter.

And do you know what I think that list has the most in common. They're overwhelmingly conservative WASPs.

More name calling. Am I a prophet or what? LOL.

 

[The T]

Q. Wanna know what REALLY takes away your freedom?

A. Keepin' you poor!

In the last couple of decades, as jobs have been outsourced, wages have dropped, and it's harder to make a living wage in America. And with the price of higher education going up (Up 500% since 1985), it's harder for parents and their kids to afford an education which allows them to move up economically.

All of this pushes down wages, even as the cost of living is going up. So, what's your choice? It's to take what you're offered even as the income gap in America is widening.

The poor have less freedom and fewer choices than anyone else, and they pay more for what they manage to get. They pay higher interest rates. They pay higher prices for grocery bills if they can't drive to other stores. They pay exorbitant rates for rent, and the poverty rate is going up. Now, why would the poverty rate be going up when the rich are doing so damn well?

Alright. While I'm not debating the fact that poor people are poor, I don't see how they are being specifically targeted by anyone because of being poor. You can show me a law that favors the rich, and I can find you TEN that favor the poor, namely entitlement programs.

But then I must question your hostility towards the rich. Are they part of this ploy to deprive the poor of their choices? I don't understand this constant vilification of prosperity. You want the poor to prosper, but then you begrudge the rich their right to prosper. There is a colossal double standard here that cannot be reconciled.

For if a poor man were to become prosperous, he would be no better than the rich man, if I interpret this correctly. That doesn't jive. It appears to me you wish for it to go both ways.

Commerce is the life blood of this nation. Our laws favor commerce. Just a little fact I garnered in law school.

Indeed. by design. It is an integral part of liberty. Without it? Liberty ceases. The Founders were smart men.

 

[Ernie S.]

Calling my faith a cult does nothing to lend credence to your argument,

On the contrary, it's entirely correct. Your faith _is_ a cult.

Thing is, your faith isn't Christianity. It's radical conservatism. That's your cult, your religion. Same with the others here. An attack on that cult is not an attack on Christianity, it's an attack on your political cult. Naturally, you'll pretend it's an attack on Christianity, just so you can keep claiming that precious, precious victimhood.

Anyways, the TrueBelievers here will keep quoting the prophet Sowell. Radical Muslims will keep quoting the prophet Mohammed. I don't see any difference. Blind adherence to an extremist dogma kind of all looks the same.

So, what were liberals like you doing in 2008, when you fell head over heels over this 'hope and change' Obama was offering?

But we didn't do that. We made a rational choice. You're just making crap up, since you're incapable of addressing what we actually say. You lying about us doesn't make us brainwashed; it just makes you all members of a liars' cult. There's no point in discussing anything with you if you're always going to ignore what we say and instead tell us what we really believe. That kind of behavior marks you as cultists, people who can't be reasoned with.

You only think you made a rational choice. You made a choice based on lofty ideals with no logic, substance or chance of success. You heard "hope and change" and actually believed that this empty suit could deliver.
So, I guess he did deliver change, but no one I've talked to appreciates the changes. He HAS transformed America, but sadly, not for the better.

 

[Foxfyre]

Sowell is such a tool. I could point numerous parts where he draws conclusion which is not warranted based on the historical facts.

The new sexual attitudes weren't 'helped' by the war on poverty money. It was helped along by the invention of the pill which completely changed the sexual landscape in the era of the baby boom generation which tended to reject their parents values at the time of the Vietnam War which just so happened to have an involuntary draft even as college deferments left the rich out of the fight because they could hide away at school or in the Texas Air National Guard, for that matter.

And do you know what I think that list has the most in common. They're overwhelmingly conservative WASPs.

More name calling. Am I a prophet or what? LOL.

No, no. While it is not a term I would use to describe Thomas Sowell, it could very well be valid in Mustang's perception. I'm hoping he will engage us on that point and explain HOW Sowell is 'such a tool'. I sometimes don't use flattering terms to describe people I criticize either, so fairness requires accepting that vernacular from others.

Provided it can be backed up of course.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Sowell is such a tool. I could point numerous parts where he draws conclusion which is not warranted based on the historical facts.

I would love to see this.

The new sexual attitudes weren't 'helped' by the war on poverty money. It was helped along by the invention of the pill which completely changed the sexual landscape in the era of the baby boom generation which tended to reject their parents values at the time of the Vietnam War which just so happened to have an involuntary draft even as college deferments left the rich out of the fight because they could hide away at school or in the Texas Air National Guard, for that matter.

So... how does this link with your position? How does this make the poor being poor attributable to anyone else except the poor? How did these situations affect the way the money was distributed? It's as if you're saying they are completely blameless for being poor. While some of that could be true, it isn't always true.

If anything the poverty money did influence the sexual attitudes of those who couldn't afford to bear children beforehand. Why are there now so many families/single parents nowadays having children and claiming them as dependents purely for the tax credit?

And do you know what I think that list has the most in common? They're overwhelmingly conservative WASPs.

Oh wow, I didn't think you would resort to religious or racial slurs, Mustang. This debases your entire argument.

"Conservative White Anglo Saxon Protestants"

Not only is that racist, I find that to be offensive, and overly stereotypical.

 

[Sunshine]

Sowell is such a tool. I could point numerous parts where he draws conclusion which is not warranted based on the historical facts.

The new sexual attitudes weren't 'helped' by the war on poverty money. It was helped along by the invention of the pill which completely changed the sexual landscape in the era of the baby boom generation which tended to reject their parents values at the time of the Vietnam War which just so happened to have an involuntary draft even as college deferments left the rich out of the fight because they could hide away at school or in the Texas Air National Guard, for that matter.

And do you know what I think that list has the most in common. They're overwhelmingly conservative WASPs.

More name calling. Am I a prophet or what? LOL.

No, no. While it is not a term I would use to describe Thomas Sowell, it could very well be valid in Mustang's perception. I'm hoping he will engage us on that point and explain HOW Sowell is 'such a tool'. I sometimes don't use flattering terms to describe people I criticize either, so fairness requires accepting that vernacular from others.

Provided it can be backed up of course.

We'll see!

 

[Foxfyre]

WASPS? I wonder if Mustang knows who this is?

 

[Sunshine]

WASPS? I wonder if Mustang knows who this is?

I can't believe it took 274 posts to get to that part! It is SO difficult to wait patiently and let the process take you there, but when it does it is like striking god. Trust the process! Catch y'all later!

 

[Mustang]

Sowell is such a tool. I could point numerous parts where he draws conclusion which is not warranted based on the historical facts.

I would love to see this.

The new sexual attitudes weren't 'helped' by the war on poverty money. It was helped along by the invention of the pill which completely changed the sexual landscape in the era of the baby boom generation which tended to reject their parents values at the time of the Vietnam War which just so happened to have an involuntary draft even as college deferments left the rich out of the fight because they could hide away at school or in the Texas Air National Guard, for that matter.

So... how does this link with your position? How does this make the poor being poor attributable to anyone else except the poor? How did these situations affect the way the money was distributed? It's as if you're saying they are completely blameless for being poor. While some of that could be true, it isn't always true.

If anything the poverty money did influence the sexual attitudes of those who couldn't afford to bear children beforehand. Why are there now so many families/single parents nowadays having children and claiming them as dependents purely for the tax credit?

And do you know what I think that list has the most in common? They're overwhelmingly conservative WASPs.

Oh wow, I didn't think you would resort to religious or racial slurs, Mustang. This debases your entire argument.

"Conservative White Anglo Saxon Protestants"

Not only is that racist, I find that to be offensive, and overly stereotypical.

Calling the Pope Catholic is not a slur.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Sowell is such a tool. I could point numerous parts where he draws conclusion which is not warranted based on the historical facts.

I would love to see this.



So... how does this link with your position? How does this make the poor being poor attributable to anyone else except the poor? How did these situations affect the way the money was distributed? It's as if you're saying they are completely blameless for being poor. While some of that could be true, it isn't always true.

If anything the poverty money did influence the sexual attitudes of those who couldn't afford to bear children beforehand. Why are there now so many families/single parents nowadays having children and claiming them as dependents purely for the tax credit?

And do you know what I think that list has the most in common? They're overwhelmingly conservative WASPs.

Oh wow, I didn't think you would resort to religious or racial slurs, Mustang. This debases your entire argument.

"Conservative White Anglo Saxon Protestants"

Not only is that racist, I find that to be offensive, and overly stereotypical.

Calling the Pope Catholic is not a slur.

That's a non sequitur.

 

[Mustang]

Sowell is such a tool. I could point numerous parts where he draws conclusion which is not warranted based on the historical facts.

I would love to see this.

The new sexual attitudes weren't 'helped' by the war on poverty money. It was helped along by the invention of the pill which completely changed the sexual landscape in the era of the baby boom generation which tended to reject their parents values at the time of the Vietnam War which just so happened to have an involuntary draft even as college deferments left the rich out of the fight because they could hide away at school or in the Texas Air National Guard, for that matter.

So... how does this link with your position? How does this make the poor being poor attributable to anyone else except the poor? How did these situations affect the way the money was distributed? It's as if you're saying they are completely blameless for being poor. While some of that could be true, it isn't always true.

If anything the poverty money did influence the sexual attitudes of those who couldn't afford to bear children beforehand. Why are there now so many families/single parents nowadays having children and claiming them as dependents purely for the tax credit?

And do you know what I think that list has the most in common? They're overwhelmingly conservative WASPs.

Oh wow, I didn't think you would resort to religious or racial slurs, Mustang. This debases your entire argument.

"Conservative White Anglo Saxon Protestants"

Not only is that racist, I find that to be offensive, and overly stereotypical.

It didn't have anything to do with it. I was merely commenting on Sowell nonsensically tying in the sexual revolution to the war on poverty.

I was going to go into some detail, but I think your post displays a complete lack of historical knowledge in how our economy worked in the past compared to the way it does today.

Let me give you the $2 tour. Our country had a long history of protectionism. We protected both our markets from too much foreign competition, and we protected our jobs by keeping our manufacturing here at home. Call it a compact if you like. And all Americans SHARED in the resulting prosperity. That means that even a worker in the trades and others with little more than a HS diploma could get a relatively good job and support a family.

But the wealthy in this country had dreams of cheap labor overseas because they saw it as a way to increase profits. So, if you previously made t-shirts in America and sold them for let's say $8 a t, you could make it overseas, ship it back here, sell it for $5 a t, and still make a much higher profit margin.

Once the door was open, Ross Perot's prediction came true.

You're probably a patriotic American. So is your liberal neighbor, whether you believe it or not. And the poor guy across town too.

But business leaders and politicians have sold out the average citizens of this country for $$$$$$$$$.

When there ain't jobs, it doesn't matter how hard you look or how hard you try. Can people find jobs? Assuming the employer won't refuse to hire someone because he's 'overqualified,' or 'too old,' or untrained in a field that pays maybe a third or a fourth of what he used to make at a job that has no benefits like he used to have, maybe.

There's a reason why there are more poor people now. It's not because, as some would have us believe, that people aren't willing to work hard like in years past, it's because the middle class is falling into a cycle of poverty and can't work their way back up.

Now, I think I asked the question before, but I don't recall getting an answer. So, I'll try again a different way. If the economy is so bad, why aren't the rich suffering just like everyone else? I don't mean suffering AS badly, but suffering at all. But the fact of the matter is that they're doing better than ever, making more money than ever and taking home a larger share of the national income.

Do you actually think that's an accident? Tell me you're not THAT naive!

 

[TemplarKormac]

It didn't have anything to do with it. I was merely commenting on Sowell nonsensically tying in the sexual revolution to the war on poverty.

So far, you have said or done nothing to disprove him. Perhaps that will change in the coming body of your rebuttal.

I was going to go into some detail, but I think your post displays a complete lack of historical knowledge in how our economy worked in the past compared to the way it does today.

And ad hominem on your part will change it how? Our economy was more solvent in the past. Spending was nowhere near as bad as it is today. People ventured out more, made more money, prospered more. Families were bigger, more people were employed! Our dollar has decreased in value ever since the institution of the Federal Reserve in the early 1900's. I know history, I study it.

Let me give you the $2 tour. Our country had a long history of protectionism. We protected both our markets from too much foreign competition, and we protected our jobs by keeping our manufacturing here at home. Call it a compact if you like. And all Americans SHARED in the resulting prosperity. That means that even a worker in the trades and others with little more than a HS diploma could get a relatively good job and support a family.

So, what this basically boils down to is an argument for socialism.

But the wealthy in this country had dreams of cheap labor overseas because they saw it as a way to increase profits. So, if you previously made t-shirts in America and sold them for let's say $8 a t, you could make it overseas, ship it back here, sell it for $5 a t, and still make a much higher profit margin.

Actually, more business have started moving overseas, for cheaper labor and operating costs. America has become increasingly hostile towards new business and big business. You can't expect a rich man to sit here in America and absorb the increasing labor costs and increasing taxes on his income, can you? Your view is increasingly one sided, Mustang.

Once the door was open, Ross Perot's prediction came true.

What prediction?

You're probably a patriotic American. So is your liberal neighbor, whether you believe it or not. And the poor guy across town too.

Do you see me questioning anyone's patriotism?

But business leaders and politicians have sold out the average citizens of this country for $$$$$$$$$.

No different than what Obama and the Democratic party have done. Or did you somehow think they couldn't possibly do such a thing?

When there ain't jobs, it doesn't matter how hard you look or how hard you try. Can people find jobs? Assuming the employer won't refuse to hire someone because he's 'overqualified,' or 'too old,' or untrained in a field that pays maybe a third or a fourth of what he used to make at a job that has no benefits like he used to have, maybe.

So you're assuming the employer has some ulterior motive against their employees? The employer has the same right to make a living as the employee does. He also has a right to hire people that he feels will contribute most to his business. People don't deserve an easy way into employment, gaining it is a challenge and you'd better be qualified.

There's a reason why there are more poor people now. It's not because, as some would have us believe, that people aren't willing to work hard like in years past, it's because the middle class is falling into a cycle of poverty and can't work their way back up.

And who's fault would that be? Republicans? In the last five years it has become increasingly harder to find work. The labor participation rate sits at a historic low, it isn't because they're falling into poverty, they are being incentivized into remaining at home living off of the government dole, which naturally will drop them into poverty on its own. Not only that, neither side has chosen to pass serious jobs legislation for over a decade and a half. This cannot be blamed on one side or the other.

Now, I think I asked the question before, but I don't recall getting an answer. So, I'll try again a different way. If the economy is so bad, why aren't the rich suffering just like everyone else? I don't mean suffering AS badly, but suffering at all. But the fact of the matter is that they're doing better than ever, making more money than ever and taking home a larger share of the national income.

Because the rich became rich by protecting their investments, shielding their assets and anticipating where the system moves and how it affects their wealth. Contrary to your belief, they aren't all exploiting the poor to remain rich.

Do you actually think that's an accident? Tell me you're not THAT naive!

No, it's as I described in the answer above this one. And you were doing so well until you called me naive. Getting rich is a matter of chance, trial and error, investing, frugality and so on. I know there are those who do exploit the poor to profit, but you are pigeonholing them into one category after another accusing them of all of these heinous atrocities against the poor.

 

[Mustang]

WASPS? I wonder if Mustang knows who this is?

Michelle Obama'a mom?