First to respond to you all, and if better questions aren't asked (and there were a few great questions), I will start to respond to the better ones, as this took two hours to type, and I haven't even gotten to my own case yet.
rtwngAvngr said:
Do you believe these lies?
They sure as hell do redistribute income.
There sure as hell is a component of deadbeatism in the equation. You're a liar. Do you think we're stupid?
Give one example where Democrat Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has supported redistributing income. I deny any.
Deadbeatism, in other words lazy or failing to pay debt. You guys kind of inadvertently confuse the issue of welfare and starving. Are starving people lazy. No! Just go to the third world, give anybody too poor to have any chance of moving up the ladder a $200-$1000 loan, even with 50% interest, and they'll repay 95% of the time. So the starving aren't lazy. American welfare recipients before safety nets were removed? Nope. That's a myth. Studies have shown time and time again that if given the opportunity to earn more than the welfare check, more than just most will take it. Even if they get a welfare check, if they are allowed to work at the same time for reasonable pay (and it's quite low), more than just most will do it.
I expected to be called everything possible on this board, but never a liar. I am not one. I haven't lied for years. I will back up anything I say. I will show why 500,000 is a sensible figure.
Originally Posted by catatonic
OK. Myth#1 - taxes are stealing.
only if against the commerce clause. Every state at some point agreed to the commerce clause to join the Union. Taxes are barter between the wealthy and poor for the things the Constitution allows for.. and yes, when "the general welfare" is mentioned in the Constitution, it means exactly that. Look it up in the Federalist Papers if you like. The fact that "general welfare" was paid for by small means in the 1800s and large means in the 1900s is not a double standard... it is a function of population density.
by MissileMan
It doesn't say however to provide for the general welfare by strong-arming those with money.
reply by catatonic
Who's stopping the top 0.1% from not paying taxes? They make the laws every congress to evade taxes with all types of shelters and flaky policies. I'd say they're strong-arming the lawmakers. If anything, they pay it voluntarily.
Quote:
Originally Posted by catatonic
Myth#2 the government redistributes wealth.
No, it just is responsible for general welfare whenever the people themselves fail to provide it. You can start donating to the starving anytime you like, and I assure you government will back down.
by MissileMan
You can justify it in your own mind however you like, but taking money that I earned and giving it to someone who doesn't work is redistribution of wealth.
by catatonic
wealth yes income no.. and the wealth is not interchangable to income.
wealth is generally an abundance, but by saying goods oh yeah sure. We pay farmers to not grow all this food and all I've ever asked in this thread is for the top 0.1% to care and for the bottom 0.1% to be fed. Sure... pay farmers to not grow all this food, but when you feed someone starving to death it must be an attack on the wealthy. If feeding the starving isn't the commerce clause, what is? I will gladly provide info later on to justify why this isn't about them not willing to work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by catatonic
Myth#3 these people are too lazy to eke out their own living.
The fundamental difference between the homeless and ordinary people is that the homeless don't have as solid of social networks to rely on. Many people would be homeless, but their parents or friends or church or other provide sustainence. Many people don't get sustainence from these groups, and that is the most common distinction. It has little at all to do with laziness or ability.
MissileMan wrote:
The homeless and welfare recipients are two separate categories. Welfare recipients live quite comfortably in their abode that we tax payers provide for them.
catatonic wrote:
Yes the welfare recipients live quite comfortably... the corporate welfare recipients, who buy $45 steaks and drive cadillacs.
Not all welfare recipients have a home.
You think living on (noncorporate) welfare is comfortable? Ask a recipient.
Homeless and welfare recipient are two separate categories. I'd like to clarify before it comes up that welfare recipients and those below the poverty line are too separate categories as well. I am in the extreme poverty class myself. I pay $99 rent. I'm extraordinarily comfortable. I know a lot of nice things, and feel I'm more comfortable than many rich people. I'm perfectly content. I don't ask for any income increase at all. All I want for myself is to be fed (watered clothed etc), be able to reach my highest fulfillment (which takes no money) and to be comfortable. All I want a higher income for is to spread love and protect humanity. Many people below the poverty line are comfortable. Many people in extreme poverty are too. The welfare recipients... no. They feel dependence, which alone is uncomfortable, and almost all want to work as soon as possible. Is their abode comfortable? I tried living in one of the cheapest apartments in downtown LA. No it was not comfortable. Ask me if I had anything in particular, running water, air conditioning, basic privacy, in fact I'll cut to the chase. I had a lockless door, a hard-to-open window, a bed many would cringe at, 7 floors of nonworking showers, and a couple of washing machines and dryers, coin operated of course. Almost all welfare recipients make under 3/4 of a minimum wage job.
2. AFDC figures from U.S. Social Security Administration. Food Stamp figures from U.S. Department of Agriculture, "Annual Historical Review of FNS Programs" and unpublished data.
3. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Poverty in the United States, Series P-60, No. 185, 1993.
Minimum wage won't put a roof over your head in an ever-growing area that's significant already where the cost to rent an apartment overcomes it entirely.
Comfortable... no.
Quote:
Originally Posted by catatonic
Myth#4 welfare recipients create a litter of genetically-diverse, future-deadbeats.
Missile Man, deleting my post that said most are off as soon as they can be, and typically it's a year, and virtually none live out life on it, wrote:
On the contrary, they've contributed the phrase "my babies' daddies" to Americana.
catatonic: Actually, that's a result of the way things are, as I keep saying I'll demonstrate.
"I can't remember the name of that thug I gave it up too and now I have a childless father.
Also, I have little respect for myself and even less for the poor little child I irresponsible brought into this world and doomed to poverty." First sentence a consequence of dense population. Second sentence a consequence of dense population. I'll demonstrate. Just wait...!
Quote:
Originally Posted by catatonic
Most welfare recipients get off welfare as soon as they can, which is about a year. Very few welfare recipients are lifelong welfare recipients and even fewer pass it to their kids.
Missile Man wrote:
Yes, the trend has improved in the last 10 years due to welfare reform, but 30% wind up on assistance longer than 1 year. See here:
http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/indicators05/ch2.htm#ch2_7
catatonic:
If you call people starving to death an improvement. So it's a statistical distribution, and of those 30% I'm willing to bet most still are doing everything to get back on their feet.
BaronVonBigmeat said:
This is pure fiction that you just made up out of thin air.
Alright wise guy. Find a credible source that says it's not so. I absolutely did not make it up out of thin air. It's a fact... and I'm getting around to demonstrating it from two fronts, simple indisputable math from the most proven facts, and actually explaining what a homeless person's life is like. So hold your horses.
The average american today has absolutely no clue whatsoever what the term "poverty" really means, unless they grew up during the depression or vacation in Mexico frequently. If we had genuine hunger--kids with visible ribs, vultures circling overhead--the media would be all over it, and there would be a tidal wave of donations.
Funny... those who grew up in the depression have no problem with any of what I say here.
Funny... does the media cover disasters until they go away? Don't we still need money for Katrina and the Indonesian quake. Where is the media? The genocide in Darfur. Not much coverage. Dick Cheney even wore a Hawaiian shirt to a Jewish holocaust memorial on TV and said never again right in the middle of Darfur. He got plenty of coverage. Darfur got none. But simply starving... never. The media only draws attention to starvation related to large events. You'd think the natural consequences of our society would count, but that's too undefinable for them. The earthquake in Iran... not much coverage. Objective statistics to describe the situation... hardly ever. 1 billion people in the world go to bed hungry every night... did you hear that in the MSM? Now I have no idea why the media doesn't report this, but they don't. Maybe just no money in it.
There is
relative poverty, but that is impossible to eliminate, even in Marxist nations such as Cuba and North Korea. If you hate relative poverty, okay whatever, but don't just lie through your teeth like
Mitch Snyder.
I respectfully thought you must be refering to the paper itself instead of the content. Horror! Whoever Mitch Snyder is he is not the author.
Look. This article presents no actual evidence of any overestimation of the poor's value. The article talks about their black market assets as if that's a positive influence that makes them wealthier. Crime?
Did I ever say I hated relative poverty? People should be payed as much as it takes to motivate their working as hard as they could work for more pay, for a useful job of course. I've said nothing about redistribution of income, just the general welfare. Just keeping someone alive!
Anyway I've already stated I'm very comfortable in the extreme poverty bracket myself. Actual relative poverty is possible to eliminate, it's called eventually getting rid of money, automating all the undesirable tasks with robots, one world government, only a peacekeeping army, treating criminals for the mental illness that is truly their condition, a global leisure class where the geniuses are not stopped by having to earn a living from making every discovery and artistic creation and entertainment there can be, and several other things that just get ignored and brushed aside. It's calling. Put one ice-water-splashing fact accross my butterfly-animated mind to disappoint me.
I am pretty sure you pulled this one out of your ass, too.
Oh, what's your source against it, whatever you are refering to?
The original intention of the commerce clause was well-known for many, many years as a strict limit on the power of the federal government. And stop referring to the federalist papers as if you'd read them.
What in the world are you going on about, liberals proudly cherish wealth redistribution as a centerpiece of what the government does.
Harry Reid has never supported income redistribution. As for wealth distribution, find me one time when he emphasized wealth distribution over creating opportunity.
Challenge to the whole world to find one case.
BTW, what are you talking about when you say the government will back down? You probably think that before the New Deal, people starved to death in the streets, and that they just had to step in, because the public is too selfish to help their fellow man? If that's the mythology you suscribe to, I'd recommend starting
here.
(Actually, the whole book is available free at olasky.com but the site isn't working for now)
The government will not step aside even if private charity was enough to provide a safety net (it was, and is). That's because social welfare isn't about helping the poor, it's about getting bigger budgets and more votes.
I'll withhold comment until I've digested enough of the book that I can argue I've formed a conclusion.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Thinking that the wretchedly poor are saints is as foolish as thinking that the megarich are always villains. There are an awful lot of homeless people who either have mental problems, or just really don't care about anything but drinking.
Wait 'til I get to the part where I describe the homeless!
BaronVonBigmeat said:
ahahahhahaha
1) You're quoting "some guy at a food bank"
An intelligent guy who knew a lot, who had worked for several food banks and elsewhere.
2) You assure us he's competent, but competent how? Handing out cans of food? Or competent in setting up unbiased data analysis?
Well, this is a good question. He saw a great many people starving to death in each of many cities he went to, and I kept pushing the issue and yes bones were sticking out, his understanding of concepts was just fine, he loved to talk about things like the city budget and demographics... for instance he discussed the rate at which people were moving in and how many aqueducts they had to build to accomodate them in water, and could give me a figure to understand how this affected the budget. He'd give detailed weather forecasts that he understood. He understood long-term city trends. He could explain why a local Macey's was going out of business. He talked to fellow food bank workers, and said there's an agreement. No he didn't appear to be the brightest guy on the block. Isn't what I stated here sufficient? He clearly knows enough math to give a floor, and enough sense to identify those on the verge of death. As for bias, he never said a word about any political party or even any principle held any more by any party than any other. He only talked about things that everyone would agree on. He never pushed any agenda on anyone. He didn't even say he wanted anyone to do anything. I didn't say a word to him about my political persuasions either, as I do in all my most professional relationships, except I did raise concerns about starving people to be fair. What else can I say against his having a bias? He never presented any. He only talked about this at all because I brought it all up through questioning him about what he'd done. I asked him why some states can feed all their people and some can't. He said it's very complicated and left it at that.
3) Having lots of people working at food banks tell you that people in america are literally starving means nothing. In fact it ought to be automatically suspect, since they may be either A) well intentioned but off base, or B) exaggerating to get more funding.
What right or reason do you have for suspecting them on A or B? Would you call the peace corps or American Red Cross A or B? What's the difference?
A) What segregates them from sanity? It's like demeaning the food not bombs club. Oh they want to lower military spending and feed people they know are hungry, and in fact they just feed them themselves. Are these people of lower intelligence? No. Are they higher? No. Offbase. How? They go to college and can be CEOs. Are they mentally ill? Not any more than others. Demented from working in a food bank... yeah right. They follow the basic right to life our founding father's established... they are with it.
B) Please see the bottom of this post.
This is laughable rubbish. You're saying that TV and newspapers wouldn't cover that, are you insane?
Oh yeah I'm insane. Are you insane? Pleased to meet me insane.
TV stations LIVE for that shit. They eat, sleep, and breathe that stuff. Anything emotional that tugs at your heartstrings. For example, see Geraldo Rivera during hurricane Katrina (those people actually did have something to bitch about). Do you think Geraldo and thousands of aspiring wannabe-Geraldos would get a hot tip about an american neighborhood with starving kids and just shrug their shoulders and say "Naaah. That wouldn't make a good news story. 'FAMINE DEATHS IN OUR BACKYARD' isn't something that would sell newspapers. Oh but wait, here's something about starving kids...in Africa. Now THIS, we have to cover!"
Well that just shows what you know. Incidentally, did you see one person starving to death in that whole scenario? Didn't think so.
No you can't. Unless you're the first Malthusian to ever have his predictions come true. We were supposed to experience global famines and massive resource shortages back in the 70's. It never happened, because the Malthusians never account for human ingenuity.
Wasn't that a mistaken calculation about an oil crash that had nothing to do with human ingenuity or Malthusianism? Incidentally, in the 70s we had Keynesian economics, with 30 years of awesome prosperity. Now we're doing this globalisation, and dozens of countries have already defaulted on their currency and had to be bailed out by other countries. And these peak oil guys don't realize that oil fields regenerate. So was the fact that the oil wells in Kuwait regenerated due to human ingenuity or dumb luck? Anyway...
You can't very well cite the media when your source is imaginary fairy-tale fiction. Instead what you do is throw out a number (or flurry of numbers), cross your fingers, and hope no one calls you on it.
That was red state rules tactic... hoping I wouldn't call him on the insanely low percentage necessary for even the largest welfare systems.
Nobody on this board will disprove it. I will demonstrate much.
Related tactics (which he is not guilty of, in all fairness) amongst the left: Taking a "more educated than thou" tone, and/or writing in Marxian-gibberish. It's where you take simple concepts but explain them with paragraph-long sentences. In other words, a smokescreen for bad ideas.
Actually this is how I write to my Senator, this is how he writes back, and this is how the US code looks. It's just rigor for clarity, as these big conversations are rather important.
MissileMan said:
Or even stranger, how does putting people together with something to eat at a food bank equal starvation?
A good solid question. Because so many food banks are closed except a few days or very often even once a week. And assuming keeping track is a problem, it often requires lots of travel to get to an open one. And in many areas, and here's what's completely devastating to you, all a homeless man can ever get is expired milk and expired eggs and nothing else, not even bread. Have you ever tried expired milk? It can make you throw up and how do you store it anyway. Expired eggs? Barf... literally. This should completely devastate you know. So are they exaggerating to get more funding. No. Are you devastated?
comes in...:scratch:
