Vail of Ignorance exercise...

[deciophobic]

Here's a little exercise you can all do to decide what kind of government or society you would like to live in or which you think is the best type of government.

Imagine that you are about to form a society from scratch...

now, imagine that you have no idea where you will be born into that society...you could be born privalaged, middle class, or dirt poor and very unlucky.

now, since you have no idea where you will end up in the society, wouldn't you at least want the bare minimum for everybody(like welfare, medicare etc...). This post is mainly for you people who are against welfare and the people who don't want to pay to help other people.

I beleive this is the most fair way to come up with a system for society.

What kind of govt. or society did you come up with?

 

[_dmp_]

I'd come up w/ a place where ppl kept what they earned...and helped those who needed it out of the goodness of their hearts.

 

[deciophobic]

Originally posted by dmp
I'd come up w/ a place where ppl kept what they earned...and helped those who needed it out of the goodness of their hearts.

me too, cept I don't think a whole lot of people would want to help the poor or disadvantaged out of the goodness of their hearts, sadly.

 

[winston churchi]

It is abuse of welfare that is the problem.

Out of that scenerio - assuming you are dirt poor and require assistance - there should be a time limit on how long you accept government handouts.
For one, as in the middle class person who thinks rationally, you must live within your means. Having a child every year is not living within your means and one should not be given greater handouts per every child born....(I have met one person who had another child for more money).
I believe two years is a fair amount of time alloted for living off of society. After that, you are on your own....

Too many Americans live their entire lives off of society with no intentions of learning a skill, obtaining a job or surviving on their own. Many of these welfare cases have quite a few children who are fatherless or have more than one father and for each child born - more money given.

 

[_dmp_]

Originally posted by deciophobic
me too, cept I don't think a whole lot of people would want to help the poor or disadvantaged out of the goodness of their hearts, sadly.

Tough Luck...people tend to be 'disadvantaged' by their own making anyway.

(shrug)

I don't remember meeting a person who through NO fault of their own was 'poor'. There ARE jobs. There IS work.

 

[5stringJeff]

Originally posted by deciophobic
Here's a little exercise you can all do to decide what kind of government or society you would like to live in or which you think is the best type of government.

Imagine that you are about to form a society from scratch...

now, imagine that you have no idea where you will be born into that society...you could be born privalaged, middle class, or dirt poor and very unlucky.

now, since you have no idea where you will end up in the society, wouldn't you at least want the bare minimum for everybody(like welfare, medicare etc...). This post is mainly for you people who are against welfare and the people who don't want to pay to help other people.

I beleive this is the most fair way to come up with a system for society.

What kind of govt. or society did you come up with?

What I would want is:

1. A government that protected its citizens from foreign threats (i.e. national defense) and maintained domestic tranquility; a government that kept me safe, upheld my rights (e.g. those listed in the Constitution) but otherwise lets me do my own thing, as long as my rights not infringe upon others.

2. An economic system that is based on free-market capitalism, where the government did not interfere except to ensure fair business practices (i.e. truth in advertising, anti-monopoly laws, etc.). Such a system allows class mobility, which is one of the great things about this country - a person can work and become extremely wealthy, or a person can not work and become a drag on society. This is much more important than gov't enforced welfare and gov't enforced health care for the poor. I would much rather people earn their own wealth, and then gave to the poor as they saw fit.
I believe that gov't entitlements produce dependence on gov't by its recipients, and I am in favor of limiting those entitlements as much as possible - not because I don't think that people need it, but because I don't feel it should be the govt's place to determine how much money a person should have.

 

[_dmp_]

I am SOOO going to vote for you, jefferson.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Originally posted by deciophobic
Here's a little exercise you can all do to decide what kind of government or society you would like to live in or which you think is the best type of government.

Imagine that you are about to form a society from scratch...

now, imagine that you have no idea where you will be born into that society...you could be born privalaged, middle class, or dirt poor and very unlucky.

now, since you have no idea where you will end up in the society, wouldn't you at least want the bare minimum for everybody(like welfare, medicare etc...). This post is mainly for you people who are against welfare and the people who don't want to pay to help other people.

I beleive this is the most fair way to come up with a system for society.

What kind of govt. or society did you come up with?

I would want a system where most of my success and failures depended upon my resourcefulness and hardwork. I want to succeed or fail based on my own merit. This is the most fair system I've seen. The socialist systems you posit as fair are inevitably merely oppression of the people by an arrogant and abusive governing class, which subverts the government apparatus for it's own various purposes.

 

[DKSuddeth]

the one thing I hate about the new republican ideology of 'its your fault' is that it leaves zero possibility for anything to be OTHER than your fault.

 

[_dmp_]

Originally posted by DKSuddeth
the one thing I hate about the new republican ideology of 'its your fault' is that it leaves zero possibility for anything to be OTHER than your fault.

99% of the time, there IS zero possibility that continued poverty is the fault of anyone else.

I've seen people go from immigrants, who speak NO english, to making 6-figure income within 5 years of their arrival.

Plenty of people.

 

[5stringJeff]

Originally posted by DKSuddeth
the one thing I hate about the new republican ideology of 'its your fault' is that it leaves zero possibility for anything to be OTHER than your fault.

DK, I would like to have laws that protected consumers from dirty business tactics, laws that protected employees from things like the Enron collapse, or that protect investors from insider trading deals, because you are right - when one person breaks the law, others shouldn't have to pay the consequences. But in many, many cases, people are poor because they lack the will to better themselves, and I balk at having to pay for that person's basic needs if he/she is too lazy to do it themselves.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

I used to work a trade show circuit where I was exposed to many entrepeneurs. I know a guy who was born poor and didn't go to school past 5th grade who started with 700$ and grew it to a chain of fourty stores. Marcy Imports. How? He was a tenacious little shitkicking hillbilly. That's all. No skull and bones or silver spoon, no ivy league or council on foreign relations.

 

[DKSuddeth]

Originally posted by gop_jeff
DK, I would like to have laws that protected consumers from dirty business tactics, laws that protected employees from things like the Enron collapse, or that protect investors from insider trading deals, because you are right - when one person breaks the law, others shouldn't have to pay the consequences. But in many, many cases, people are poor because they lack the will to better themselves, and I balk at having to pay for that person's basic needs if he/she is too lazy to do it themselves.

i agree with this.

 

[insein]

Originally posted by deciophobic
me too, cept I don't think a whole lot of people would want to help the poor or disadvantaged out of the goodness of their hearts, sadly.

then thats there choice to be made and not forced upon them.

 

[Moi]

Originally posted by deciophobic
Here's a little exercise you can all do to decide what kind of government or society you would like to live in or which you think is the best type of government.

Imagine that you are about to form a society from scratch...

now, imagine that you have no idea where you will be born into that society...you could be born privalaged, middle class, or dirt poor and very unlucky.

now, since you have no idea where you will end up in the society, wouldn't you at least want the bare minimum for everybody(like welfare, medicare etc...). This post is mainly for you people who are against welfare and the people who don't want to pay to help other people.

I beleive this is the most fair way to come up with a system for society.

What kind of govt. or society did you come up with?

I'd come up with a society that merits hard work with success rather than a society that rewards laziness and stupidity.

Oops, it's already created. It's called the United States. I guess I'm just a founding father wannabe.

Seriously, luck has very little to do with success and subsistence in this country. Hard work is rewarded. Are there instances where people do everything right, work hard and still get screwed? Of course. But that's where charity comes in. There's a difference between a safety net and/or a helping hand versus taking from Peter the hardworking to pay Paul, the sloth.

 

[winston churchi]

Originally posted by DKSuddeth
the one thing I hate about the new republican ideology of 'its your fault' is that it leaves zero possibility for anything to be OTHER than your fault.

What a funny statment to make. Blaming republicans for saying 'its your fault' - do you find the humor in what you wrote???

 

[William Joyce]

Rawls' idea is stupid. (It's Veil of Ignorance, btw.)

Given a chance of coming out as "anyone," you'd logically choose something to accommodate the middle. Great. All this does is to make an idol of the mediocre. Which is what liberals seek, anyway.

The best reason to reject this idea is simple: I am who I am. Period. I've got to deal with that. That's where liberalism goes so horribly wrong: sit around and dream you, me, we and they can be somebody else. No. Not gonna happen.

Liberals can't accept that some people will turn out stupid, poor and ugly. So, they try to drag everyone down to that level. That's not enlightened. That's just jealousy turned into a government.

 

[Bern80]

Ironically, I am reading "Atlas Shrugged" Which pretty much cuts right to the heart of this topic.

It is essentially about what the entrepreneurs, CEO's, and capitalists of society do when the liberals start trying to tell them that they owe them something that they didn't earn. That is what a few of you are proposing on this topic. Do people fall on hard times? Yes. Are medical expenses hard for some people to cover? Yes. Do we need a system that helps people that truly can not help themselves? Yes

But the truth is most people CAN help themselves. Yes it is nice for us to help are fellow man when they fall on hard times, but it is not my obligation. My obligation is to one person. Me. As your obligation is only to you. Your well being is your responsibility and yours alone.

In the words of Ayn Rand via Hank Rearden, "I do not seek the good of others as a sanction for my right to exist."

 

[Avatar4321]

Originally posted by deciophobic
Here's a little exercise you can all do to decide what kind of government or society you would like to live in or which you think is the best type of government.

Imagine that you are about to form a society from scratch...

now, imagine that you have no idea where you will be born into that society...you could be born privalaged, middle class, or dirt poor and very unlucky.

now, since you have no idea where you will end up in the society, wouldn't you at least want the bare minimum for everybody(like welfare, medicare etc...). This post is mainly for you people who are against welfare and the people who don't want to pay to help other people.

I beleive this is the most fair way to come up with a system for society.

What kind of govt. or society did you come up with?

All of what you said is based on the poor assumption that you are born to your lot in life. This isnt true. We determine where we end up in life. If we work hard, work smart and take advantage of oportunities before us we will get far in this world. if not it doesnt matter what society we live in we will be poor trash.

 

[Hobbit]

Originally posted by deciophobic
Here's a little exercise you can all do to decide what kind of government or society you would like to live in or which you think is the best type of government.

Imagine that you are about to form a society from scratch...

now, imagine that you have no idea where you will be born into that society...you could be born privalaged, middle class, or dirt poor and very unlucky.

now, since you have no idea where you will end up in the society, wouldn't you at least want the bare minimum for everybody(like welfare, medicare etc...). This post is mainly for you people who are against welfare and the people who don't want to pay to help other people.

I beleive this is the most fair way to come up with a system for society.

What kind of govt. or society did you come up with?

While the benifits of a Socialist society are obvious, I'll pass. I mean, sure, under socialism, you're guaranteed ample food and a decent education, but you go all the way through life knowing you'll never have anything more. Capitalism makes it much easier for you to achieve world dominat...I mean...success. That's the word, success.

:dev1: