American Politics

[sprunkner]

Every time I get close to moving to Canada, that damn Shanti goes and makes a post.

[Leatherneck]

Well, I happen to know lots of people (myself included) who use WIC and food stamps, and don't get me started on that system...

Look, you met the idiots. Every system has a few idiots taking advantage of it, but in lots of cases the ONLY ******* WAY to get through graduate school with a baby without shelling out money I don't have for daycare and letting the baby's mom actually spend time with her is WIC and foodstamps. And graduate school, in case you haven't heard, takes five years. Not exactly a short-term solution.

So what were we supposed to do? Abort the baby? No--wait--your party doesn't even want people to have that OPTION.

Not to mention that WIC won't ******* BUY FRESH VEGETABLES. What the ******* ****? Our government thinks we can live off free ******* cheese and milk? So the system is ****** already, because we spend all our money trying to eat healthy--and I'm not even talking organic or local, but just buying some goddamn tomatoes and zucchini

I don't know what type of grad school you're doing, but going full time I would have my proposed Master's [Masters of Science in Taxation] in about a year. I'll probably have it in two, as I'll be working. Before you lambaste me for evangelicals' views on abortion, I'm on your side.

There's plenty of ways to make ends meet if you haven't ****** them up beforehand -- people are knocking down everybody's doors to give out student loans, choosing the right part time job can land you with decent pay AND full benefits, etc.

I apologize if I wasn't clear in what I was saying, but here's the net net of what I'm about on this issue: Given that this is the real world, we obviously can't have zero social welfare. I get that. There has to be something, because **** happens. However, whatever it is should be supplemental. Social Security IS NOT and SHOULD NOT be relied on as a full pension plan. Welfare/WIC/the 1800000000000 other programs should not be supporting you while you pop out kid after kid while living in gov't housing projects. Sorry, I'm a selfish bastard, but I'm sick of working 3-4 months a year to give the money away for the government's wealth redistribution plans. Again, because it's the real world, I know I need to pay some taxes, but to be asking me at 22 working part time and going to school full time to pay about 1/4 of my income in various taxes is retarded. I'm not a daddy-sends-me-to-private-college kid, I'm an I work and have student loans to go to state college and commute there type of kid. And hot damn, it's about to pay off. I'm graduating in May and have a job that's going to pay me a lot of money and send me to grad school. So here's me patting myself on the back for busting ass and doing something with myself to put myself in a situation where I can work to support the bottom of the totem pole.



On BF's 40 cents:

I don't hate poor people for being poor. I hate poor people who are poor and have no desire to be anything but. But this is not the best way, there has to be something better. Maybe it's mandating that people finish high school, maybe it's an "if you drop out of HS you need to then go to a tech school to be able to make money and support yourself" thing, I don't know. Yeah, I know you'll tell me the sob story about kids having to drop out to support their families, but I think that any changes like mine would need to be accompanied by (or force) behavioral changes whereby getting into those situations are not acceptable. Maybe to contract the handout programs we need to expand the "take care of this family so the kids can get some schoolin'" programs. Anything is better than just giving. After that, more people are working and less people are being supported, which will lower required government spending so maybe we can balance a budget, as well as dispersing the tax burden a little bit further, making us all happier. Then maybe we can work on people saving money so that a temporary job loss doesn't mean reliance on government funding.

Pipe dreams, I guess. But my financial education has taught me to expect returns on investments, or take your money somewhere else and put it to better use.

[Yaya]

2) Not that i neccessarily disagree with some of what PS listed and Yaya endorsed, but when you say 'what America has become' - what exactly are you really harking back to. I say this in a curious rather than a critical way, but i think if you look back over the decades, be it MaCathrthism, certain assasinations, installing Pinochet, Vietnam, selling weapons to people that the people who sold them the weapons in the first place later denounce as evil incarnate, etc etc, i'm not sure i percieve much of a golden age. And again i don't say that in a ya boo sucks your country is the worst one ever way as i am fully aware that my nations history is peppered with travesty and plenty of others are as well - just the simpel question really, what are you harking back to?

I see what you're saying, and I guess what I mean is I hate what I have seen America become in my own liftetime.

Certainly, worse has been done by the US since it's inception. For God's sake, look what we did to the native Americans, and how we put black people in chains and injected them purposefully with syphillis to study the disease. In the wake of these events, good people stood up and fought against it, made things change.

I guess reading about these injustices is not as scary as actually witnessing them firsthand, and that's where the added disappointment comes.

Or maybe it was always there, and I was just too naive or too young to care.

[Professor Smooth]

I was all set to make a long and detailed post about the US and politics and comparative justice, but it's not needed.

The US has never been great but it's gotten worse over the past 8 years.

Saying that something that sucks in the US isn't so bad because it happens elsewhere is stupid. Party politics existing in another country does not excuse what it has become in the US.

You're more likely to be murdered by a stranger in the US than you are to win a lottery jackpot.

Slavery and the treatment of native americans were terrible. But don't spend too much time dwelling on atrocities of the past (that you can't change) when there are so many happening now that you can.

That's about all I've got.

[IronHide]

What do you make of this election? The unprecedented turnout and interest? The possibility, some say probability of a woman or black man in the White House?

This election will be remembered as the time the democrats almost put a minority in the white house but got beat by that one republican guy.

Both Hillary and Obama are hoping to capture the attention of Americans because neither a woman or african american has ever made a successful run. Frankly..Hillary is an idiot and Obama is inexperienced.

Where as on the flip side you have Huckabee and McCain saying they support Bush....but think they can do a much better job. Id imagine the majority of people will go for that angle.

On a sadder and more pathetic not, if the government really wanted to increase voter turnout, they allow you to text in your vote via your Motorolla Razr! Now only $49.99 with new contract.

[Cathy_Quinn]

From what I've read there doesn't seem to be much between Obama and Clinton on the issues, they both seem fairly sensible. Hillary seems to be very focussed on improving healthcare whilst Barack's higher education plans sound very inviting indeed. Will watch with interest

[Best First]

@ Leatherneck - can i ask where anyone has advocated welfare as a permenant support structure for people rather than a safety net to catch people before they fall too far and allow them to get back on their feet as contributing individuals? You seem to constantly be arguing this point but no one anywhere has made this assertion. I'd also suggest if you are going to continually focus on the abuse of the system you check your facts about what % this actually runs to - certainly here aspects of the media constantly highlight benefit cheats but if you actually delve into the facts the numbers of people who are comiting the naughty acts they thrust into their readers faces on a weekly basis are actually small compared to the number of people who are benfiting from the systems in the way they were intended - i.e getting back to work, supporting people through disibilitating illness, etc. Lets dicth the red herring that anyone is saying people should just be paid for the sake of it as they are not well off - no one is claiming that. Conversely some people are claiming that "teach a man to fish" and the like are gross simplifications with no merit or nuance.

As for tax the assertion that 30% of your salary goes to welfare of one form or another is one i suspect you cannot support. Had a quick look and here is a sample breakdown from 2002:

http://www.antiwarcommittee.org/resourc ... nd2002.pdf

I'd also say that if you are continually resorting to purely personal experience to back up assertions then your arguements are always going to look a bit flimsey. Your assertion, for example, that you CAN land a decent job kind of assumes there is one going for everyone which again i suspect you could not back up statistaically.

I have navigated life fine, got a good job and generally everything is hunky dory but i'm not going to extrapolate that out and assume that what has worked out for me is going to pan out for everyone, as there is no logic to such an approach.

As for investments - ha your course also taught you that sometimes you need to put more in up front to get things running properly and establish an effective system in the long term?

On a seperate note - saying you are more likley to be murdered than win the lottery - er, so? Is there anywhere where this is not true? Luxumbourg maybe?

[Obfleur]

Again, because it's the real world, I know I need to pay some taxes, but to be asking me at 22 working part time and going to school full time to pay about 1/4 of my income in various taxes is retarded. I'm not a daddy-sends-me-to-private-college kid, I'm an I work and have student loans to go to state college and commute there type of kid.

Isn't it more retarded that you have to work, to afford going to school? (I'm guessing that's why you work?)

[Professor Smooth]

On a seperate note - saying you are more likley to be murdered than win the lottery - er, so? Is there anywhere where this is not true? Luxumbourg maybe?

It was a rather stupid way of phrasing my argument, wasn't it? Withdrawn.
Still, 10,000 homicides per year is a bit shocking for a civilized nation, is it not?

[Best First]

word.

[Yaya]

This election will be remembered as the time the democrats almost put a minority in the white house but got beat by that one republican guy.

Where as on the flip side you have Huckabee and McCain saying they support Bush....but think they can do a much better job. Id imagine the majority of people will go for that angle.

That's pretty much how I see it too.

And I blame Obama for it all. America needs a Democrat, even an incompetent Democrat, just to break this 'dynasty' of sorts.

Hell, this country re-elected Bush. They re-elected Bush! Can anyone seriously tell me a black man has a snowballs chance in hell of winning? And a black man with the middle name "Hussein" at that?

Had the Democrats rallied around Hillary from the beginning, as they should have, instead of Obama creating this division in the party and actually fooling even sensible people that a black man can win, things could have been different.

Obama is the Republicans God-send.

Notice how the media has not attacked this guy....yet. They want Hillary out, then watch the **** fly at Obama.

Give the Republicans credit, they know how to play this game.

[Metal Vendetta]

As for tax the assertion that 30% of your salary goes to welfare of one form or another is one i suspect you cannot support. Had a quick look and here is a sample breakdown from 2002:

http://www.antiwarcommittee.org/resourc ... nd2002.pdf

These links I found are pretty telling about what American taxes are spent on.

[Yaya]

As for tax the assertion that 30% of your salary goes to welfare of one form or another is one i suspect you cannot support. Had a quick look and here is a sample breakdown from 2002:

http://www.antiwarcommittee.org/resourc ... nd2002.pdf

These links I found are pretty telling about what American taxes are spent on.

Wow. Just...wow.

Professor Smooth, you got room for one more?

[Impactor returns 2.0]

Looks like the west to me.

America spend roughly the same % of thier tax on Military funding as most western countries do, they just have a larger income.

Also, and I do find those figures to be a bit general to say the least, how does 'military' breakdown?

Some might say that they spend to much? but then others will argue that soilders, young men and women, are sent of to war, to die, and are paid bugger all to do so.

Also, the military, from ship builders, to aircraft manufacturing etc... employs 10'000 of civilian workers.

A country needs a military, and the larger the country, the more you will need to spend as you will have more people (due to population size) who will want to join. but the ratio of military spending remains consistent across the world. About 1/3 if memory serves me.

Personaly, I think the more interesting figures, and how they break down, over time frames, are the non military figures. these are the areas in which money gets lost due to management fees etc...
I notice on that chart an interesting lil section named 'other' which is almost $450 PP... what exactly is 'other' ???

[Best First]

"Other" is free pie for all citizens. Meat not fruit.

the figures were not posted in an anti-military fashion, rather as a counterpoint to LN's assertion of "of working 3-4 months a year to give the money away for the government's wealth redistribution ", which he clearly doesn't do.

To address the points though.

Not sure size of country is an obvious correlation to size of military - its more complicated than that surely? Nor does the fact something supplies employment make it automatically good. or immune from criticism.

Equally the notion that a country needs a military, that may be a reality in most senses now, but does it have to be?

http://www.army.com/countires_without_armies.html

Agree about soldiers pay and subsequent injury arrangements though.

Most interestingly though, why do you think that the military is immune from wasting money on beurocracy?

[Impactor returns 2.0]

Yes, I agree with your point towards LN assertion, I just went of on a tangent, and slightly off topic, and now more of that...

Well I was thinking that staff within a military setup get paid a fixed wage, even at the highest level of command.

Where as in other walks of society managers and other employees get bonus's and can demand a wage?

I guess my train of thought gos along the lines of all the nationalised services in england where higher management folk pay themselves silly sums of money, where in the past, under a government run scheme they wouldnt have been able to pay themselves off with some fat christmass bonus that didnt reflect the work they had done that year...

Thats not to say it doesnt go on in the military, everything is open to manipulation in some shape or form, but I expect in the military waste id probably due to poor mis-management of stock and such, as apposed to fat commanders sitting on the pay role?

Did find these graphs and pie charts interesting, in that the US does spend a [composite word including 'f*ck'] load on bombs:
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics ... oftheWorld

Oddly enough, talking about military employment, i had a chat with Preadbot not to recently on MSN, and I was talking about how I was starting apply for engineering jobs with companies such as BAE, the Royal Navy and other military outlets. these comapnies, as im sure your all well aware of, employ thousands of people to build military hardware.
Which led to a chat about the morality of what I would actually be doing. which is, in essence, designing products that kill more efficantly...hmm

On one hand, it puts food on the table for many people, on the other, put basicly, it kills people.

I notice many of those countries on that list, that dont sport an army, are rather small, almost like breakaway states of larger countries but i was surprised to find Iceland didnt have its own army, well, its got a US army instead, or a US outpost. so i guess thats where some of LN cash gos, to Iceland.