America Before the Entitlement State

[Unkotare]

Are you joking?

So you think new incarcerations should sharply increase when there is a decline in crime??

You're not joking?


Are you familiar at all with the concept of cause and effect?

 

[Bfgrn]

Again, you blindly speak from your parochial indoctrination.

Let's see, you offered a dishonest definition of "conservative" that was unrelated to American politics. got called on it, now you whine.

The whole world was not indoctrinated to conserve:

That's nice, but has nothing to do with the subject.



The basic tenets of American conservatism.

Please describe a conservative in Russia?

There isn't conservatism as a movement in Russia, but Russia isn't germane to this discussion.

Would a conservative in Russia want to conserve:
Economic liberty and the central role of free enterprise in American society
A small, non-invasive government
A strong national defense focused on protection and the fight against terrorism

THINK man!

I understand that you feel trapped, you are being forced to actually defend ideas, where all you know to do is spout party slogans.

You are confused and making an ass out of yourself. Let's recap:

Here is the premise you say is false:

While not all conservatives are authoritarians; all highly authoritarian personalities are political conservatives.
Robert Altmeyer - The Authoritarians

You provided a list of authoritarians like Stalin as some sort of proof the premise is false...SO...what a conservative in Russia would want to conserve is paramount to the premise.

 

[daveman]

Ágrarian economy. Rural population. Night and day.

Nice try, though.

And it couldn't work today because...?


Oh, yeah...the left has created too large a population utterly dependent on government.

Entitlements, not tax cuts, are what is widening the wealth gap.

Indeed. The obvious solution is to have everyone getting a government check.

 

[daveman]

So, would you call Democrats 'political conservatives'? Cause ordering people to buy health insurance seems pretty authoritarian to me.

That's different. Somehow. It just is.

You fascist!


There, did I get that right, Bfgrn?

I am not crazy about the individual mandate. I wanted Congress to pass a bill with ideas liberals and progressives forwarded; single payer or at least a public option. Instead, Congress used the Republican idea of the individual mandate and passed a bill very similar to a Republican bill from the early '90's.

That's been explained to you repeatedly, yet you still bitterly cling to that discredited idea. The Republican bill was a compromise.

You know, the thing the left claims the GOP never does.

 

[daveman]

I am not crazy about the individual mandate. I wanted Congress to pass a bill with ideas liberals and progressives forwarded; single payer or at least a public option. Instead, Congress used the Republican idea of the individual mandate and passed a bill very similar to a Republican bill from the early '90's.

Yeah. We vote for Democrats and get Republican laws. Can we count on you to help us repeal it?

No. Any changes should be made to the existing law. The effort to repeal it is totally disingenuous. It is just a continuation of Republican's insidious effort to undermine reform and destroy our President.

Why should the GOP support ideas they view as damaging to the nation? Just because The One says so?

That may work for you Obamabots, but normal people need facts and logic.

 

[Douger]

Ágrarian economy. Rural population. Night and day.

Nice try, though.

Yep. The only way to live.

 

[daveman]

Again, you blindly speak from your parochial indoctrination.

Let's see, you offered a dishonest definition of "conservative" that was unrelated to American politics. got called on it, now you whine.



That's nice, but has nothing to do with the subject.



The basic tenets of American conservatism.



There isn't conservatism as a movement in Russia, but Russia isn't germane to this discussion.

Would a conservative in Russia want to conserve:
Economic liberty and the central role of free enterprise in American society
A small, non-invasive government
A strong national defense focused on protection and the fight against terrorism

THINK man!

I understand that you feel trapped, you are being forced to actually defend ideas, where all you know to do is spout party slogans.

You are confused and making an ass out of yourself. Let's recap:

Here is the premise you say is false:

While not all conservatives are authoritarians; all highly authoritarian personalities are political conservatives.
Robert Altmeyer - The Authoritarians

You provided a list of authoritarians like Stalin as some sort of proof the premise is false...SO...what a conservative in Russia would want to conserve is paramount to the premise.

You're really not very good at this.

You claim...or rather, Altmeyer, who you're letting do your thinking for you (and he's not very good at it), claims that Stalin is conservative. I'm sure that sounds attractive to people who think only in terms of protest sign slogans, but it's simply not true.

If you think it is, back it up. Quotes from leftist demagogues are inadmissible.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Indeed. The obvious solution is to have everyone getting a government check.

That is the dream of Dragon, as a transition to doing away with currency.

 

[Uncensored2008]

You are confused and making an ass out of yourself. Let's recap:

I suspect that most impartial observers would say that I'm making an ass out of you.

Here is the premise you say is false:

While not all conservatives are authoritarians; all highly authoritarian personalities are political conservatives.

That isn't a "premise," it's just demagoguery. Bereft of ideas, the moron making such a statement demonizes the opposition.

Further, I followed by PROVING the claim to be not only absurdly false, but utterly stupid. The most notorious authoritarians of the 20th century were leftists.

Robert Altmeyer - The Authoritarians

Again, the man is a ******* moron, relying on the demonization of the opposition due to his inability to formulate a cogent argument.

You provided a list of authoritarians like Stalin as some sort of proof the premise is false...SO...what a conservative in Russia would want to conserve is paramount to the premise.

Stalin was a communist, the most bloody rampage of democide in human history was the attack on the Kulaks by Stalin in his attempt to collectivize agriculture in furtherance of his Marxist ideals.

And again you attempt to define conservatism as conservationism - which isn't clever, despite what KOS may tell; it's merely dishonest.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Yep. The only way to live.

False though, the United States was heavily industrialized from the beginning of the nation. The North Eastern seaboard was second only to England in industrial prowess. Boston, New York and Philadelphia were major centers of industry by 1800.

Dragon knows this, he just isn't very honest about - well anything..

 

[Foxfyre]

Uncensored is correct that the left, because they cannot easily attack the values of modern American Conservatism without looking like idiots, often try to redefine it to something more easily attacked. Of course that tactic is a strawman, but it's usually good to deflect the debate for a few posts.

The next tactic is to insist that the left has the same values and Conservatives are dishonest when they say they 'own' them.

But then you get to this whole entitlement mentality and that where the distinctions become glaringly apparent.

Modern American Conservatives value individual liberty, personal responsibility and accountability, and ability to govern themselves as the best way for all to have a reasonable chance to succeed and achieve at least a lot of their vision of the American dream. They don't see it as anybody else's responsibility to give them that. Most importantly, they are able to see that a government that can confiscate one person's property in order to give it to another person can take anything it wants from anybody.

And when you confiscate one person's property for the benefit of another, the ripple effect is far reaching. Because the government bureaucracy siphons off so much of the resources it confiscates, there are fewer resources in the private sector to buy things, provide jobs, provide pools of investment capital or credit so that others can buy and invest. When that is multiplied by many millions, it cannot help but affect the overall health of the economy.

And meanwhile you create mentalities among many on the left that they are 'entitled' to what others have and if they don't provide it for themselves, somebody else will be required to do that. And in most cases, that means they will feel much less incentive to make the effort to provide for themselves.

It is a viscious cycle that has currently brought all of Europe to its knees as entitlements have overwhelmed the economy--they ALWAYS eventuall do--and has the USA teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

 

[daveman]

Indeed. The obvious solution is to have everyone getting a government check.

That is the dream of Dragon, as a transition to doing away with currency.

He doesn't know that eventually you run out of other people's money.

 

[Bfgrn]

That's different. Somehow. It just is.

You fascist!


There, did I get that right, Bfgrn?

I am not crazy about the individual mandate. I wanted Congress to pass a bill with ideas liberals and progressives forwarded; single payer or at least a public option. Instead, Congress used the Republican idea of the individual mandate and passed a bill very similar to a Republican bill from the early '90's.

That's been explained to you repeatedly, yet you still bitterly cling to that discredited idea. The Republican bill was a compromise.

You know, the thing the left claims the GOP never does.

The Republican bill was not a compromise. It was based on core beliefs. It's really ironic that you constantly attack liberals as not subscribing to 'personal responsibility', yet the individual mandate is rooted in personal responsibility. SO...'personal responsibility' only applies to 'others'...thanks for clearing that up.

 

[Greenbeard]

That's been explained to you repeatedly, yet you still bitterly cling to that discredited idea. The Republican bill was a compromise.

A compromise between what positions?

 

[Bfgrn]

You are confused and making an ass out of yourself. Let's recap:

I suspect that most impartial observers would say that I'm making an ass out of you.

Here is the premise you say is false:

While not all conservatives are authoritarians; all highly authoritarian personalities are political conservatives.

That isn't a "premise," it's just demagoguery. Bereft of ideas, the moron making such a statement demonizes the opposition.

Further, I followed by PROVING the claim to be not only absurdly false, but utterly stupid. The most notorious authoritarians of the 20th century were leftists.

Robert Altmeyer - The Authoritarians

Again, the man is a ******* moron, relying on the demonization of the opposition due to his inability to formulate a cogent argument.

You provided a list of authoritarians like Stalin as some sort of proof the premise is false...SO...what a conservative in Russia would want to conserve is paramount to the premise.

Stalin was a communist, the most bloody rampage of democide in human history was the attack on the Kulaks by Stalin in his attempt to collectivize agriculture in furtherance of his Marxist ideals.

And again you attempt to define conservatism as conservationism - which isn't clever, despite what KOS may tell; it's merely dishonest.

So what you are saying is the only conservatism that exists is in America. The rest of the world is defined by YOUR parochial indoctrination.

 

[daveman]

I am not crazy about the individual mandate. I wanted Congress to pass a bill with ideas liberals and progressives forwarded; single payer or at least a public option. Instead, Congress used the Republican idea of the individual mandate and passed a bill very similar to a Republican bill from the early '90's.

That's been explained to you repeatedly, yet you still bitterly cling to that discredited idea. The Republican bill was a compromise.

You know, the thing the left claims the GOP never does.

The Republican bill was not a compromise. It was based on core beliefs. It's really ironic that you constantly attack liberals as not subscribing to 'personal responsibility', yet the individual mandate is rooted in personal responsibility. SO...'personal responsibility' only applies to 'others'...thanks for clearing that up.

Yes, it was a compromise.

And no, the individual mandate is not rooted in personal responsibility. The government forcing an action is not personal responsibility. Don't be ridiculous.

 

[daveman]

That's been explained to you repeatedly, yet you still bitterly cling to that discredited idea. The Republican bill was a compromise.

A compromise between what positions?

Between paying for the tax cut and not paying for it.

 

[Bfgrn]

That's been explained to you repeatedly, yet you still bitterly cling to that discredited idea. The Republican bill was a compromise.

You know, the thing the left claims the GOP never does.

The Republican bill was not a compromise. It was based on core beliefs. It's really ironic that you constantly attack liberals as not subscribing to 'personal responsibility', yet the individual mandate is rooted in personal responsibility. SO...'personal responsibility' only applies to 'others'...thanks for clearing that up.

Yes, it was a compromise.

And no, the individual mandate is not rooted in personal responsibility. The government forcing an action is not personal responsibility. Don't be ridiculous.

It was NOT a compromise. It predated the Clinton administration. And it sure is rooted in personal responsibility. Plenty of conservatives promoted it as such...

October 18th Western Republican Leadership Conference Debate:

ROMNEY: Actually, Newt, we got the idea of an individual mandate from you.

GINGRICH: That’s not true. You got it from the Heritage Foundation.

ROMNEY: Yes, we got it from you, and you got it from the Heritage Foundation and from you.

GINGRICH: Wait a second. What you just said is not true. You did not get that from me. You got it from the Heritage Foundation.

ROMNEY: And you never supported them?

GINGRICH: I agree with them, but I’m just saying, what you said to this audience just now plain wasn’t true.

ROMNEY: OK. Let me ask, have you supported in the past an individual mandate?

GINGRICH: I absolutely did with the Heritage Foundation against Hillarycare.

ROMNEY: You did support an individual mandate?

ROMNEY: Oh, OK. That’s what I’m saying. We got the idea from you and the Heritage Foundation.

GINGRICH: OK. A little broader.

ROMNEY: OK.

 

[Wry Catcher]

The following is from Forbes.com, talking about how Americans coped with social justice before the advent of big gov't handouts. If I thought the gov't was more efficient and effective, if I thought they were doing a better and more impartial job of helping the less fortunate, if I thought their programs weren't rife with fraud, waste, and outright theft, then I could see supporting those entitlement programs. But they ain't and I don't.


snippet:

Reacting to calls for cuts in entitlement programs, House Democrat Henry Waxman fumed: “The Republicans want us to repeal the twentieth century.” Sound bites don’t get much better than that. After all, the world before the twentieth century–before the New Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society–was a dark, dangerous, heartless place where hordes of Americans starved in the streets.

Except it wasn’t and they didn’t. The actual history of America shows something else entirely: picking your neighbors’ pockets is not a necessity of survival. Before America’s entitlement state, free individuals planned for and coped with tough times, taking responsibility for their own lives.

In the 19th century, even though capitalism had only existed for a short time, and had just started putting a dent in pre-capitalism’s legacy of poverty, the vast, vast majority of Americans were already able to support their own lives through their own productive work. Only a tiny fraction of a sliver of a minority depended on assistance and aid–and there was no shortage of aid available to help that minority.



AND

“Those in need,” historian Walter Trattner writes, “. . . looked first to family, kin, and neighbors for aid, including the landlord, who sometimes deferred the rent; the local butcher or grocer, who frequently carried them for a while by allowing bills to go unpaid; and the local saloonkeeper, who often came to their aid by providing loans and outright gifts, including free meals and, on occasion, temporary jobs. Next, the needy sought assistance from various agencies in the community–those of their own devising, such as churches or religious groups, social and fraternal associations, mutual aid societies, local ethnic groups, and trade unions.”

One of the most fascinating phenomena to arise during this time were mutual aid societies–organizations that let people insure against the very risks that entitlement programs would later claim to address. These societies were not charities, but private associations of individuals. Those who chose to join would voluntarily pay membership dues in return for a defined schedule of benefits, which, depending on the society, could include life insurance, permanent disability, sickness and accident, old-age, or funeral benefits.

Mutual aid societies weren’t private precursors to the entitlement state, with its one-size-fits-all schemes like Social Security and Medicare. Because the societies were private, they offered a wide range of options to fit a wide range of needs. And because they were voluntary, individuals joined only when the programs made financial sense to them. How many of us would throw dollar bills down the Social Security money pit if we had a choice?

Only when other options were exhausted would people turn to formal private charities. By the mid-nineteenth century, groups aiming to help widows, orphans, and other “worthy poor” were launched in every major city in America. There were some government welfare programs, but they were minuscule compared to private efforts.

In 1910, in New York State, for instance, 151 private benevolent groups provided care for children, and 216 provided care for adults or adults with children. If you were homeless in Chicago in 1933, for example, you could find shelter at one of the city’s 614 YMCAs, or one of its 89 Salvation Army barracks, or one of its 75 Goodwill Industries dormitories.

America Before The Entitlement State - Forbes

I suggest looking back on census records for a snap shot of America in the 19th Century. Remember, there were no standards of care and each 'benevolent' esablishment was run at the whim of the person in charge; chid labor laws and quid pro quo was not in the legal lexicon of the day and human nature has not changed.
When dad was kicked in the head by a mule and died the next day the family was on its own, many women were left without assests and several minor childen and no exented famiy in the United States. They ended up in poor houses, pre-teen daughters shipped off as domestics and boys apprenticed , that is, sent off to labor for 10 hours a day six days a week for a bowl of weak soup and a mattress.

 

[daveman]

The Republican bill was not a compromise. It was based on core beliefs. It's really ironic that you constantly attack liberals as not subscribing to 'personal responsibility', yet the individual mandate is rooted in personal responsibility. SO...'personal responsibility' only applies to 'others'...thanks for clearing that up.

Yes, it was a compromise.

And no, the individual mandate is not rooted in personal responsibility. The government forcing an action is not personal responsibility. Don't be ridiculous.

It was NOT a compromise. It predated the Clinton administration.

My bad. I was talking about a SS tax bill. Sorry. 5 hours of sleep a night this week caught up with me.

And it sure is rooted in personal responsibility. Plenty of conservatives promoted it as such...

October 18th Western Republican Leadership Conference Debate:

ROMNEY: Actually, Newt, we got the idea of an individual mandate from you.

GINGRICH: That’s not true. You got it from the Heritage Foundation.

ROMNEY: Yes, we got it from you, and you got it from the Heritage Foundation and from you.

GINGRICH: Wait a second. What you just said is not true. You did not get that from me. You got it from the Heritage Foundation.

ROMNEY: And you never supported them?

GINGRICH: I agree with them, but I’m just saying, what you said to this audience just now plain wasn’t true.

ROMNEY: OK. Let me ask, have you supported in the past an individual mandate?

GINGRICH: I absolutely did with the Heritage Foundation against Hillarycare.

ROMNEY: You did support an individual mandate?

ROMNEY: Oh, OK. That’s what I’m saying. We got the idea from you and the Heritage Foundation.

GINGRICH: OK. A little broader.

ROMNEY: OK.

There's nothing in that exchange about personal responsibility.