Cite?
I believe I implied that the NYT editorials are, generally, left leaning. You will not find an assertion made on my part that [hyperbole]“Al| NYT iz L3ftY OMG!!!111!!! R0xorz!!11!!!” [/hyperbole].
And if citing two conservative columnists from the NYT means it doesn’t lean left… well, I guess Fox News doesn’t lean right because they’ve got Alan Colmes. :rolleyes:
Just out of curiousity, what’s been the rate of inflation over those years? What’s the amount in real dollars between 1994 and 2001?
gex gex : Your post was not addressed to me (obviously, as this shall represent my foray out of lurkerdom), but allow me to respond.
It’s not America I hate. It’s you. You and every individual who thinks that he or she has a right to my property. You, who screams, “Won’t someone think of the children!” while waving your threat of mob violence.
“Society” has decided to help the less fortunate? A society has no will, only individuals do. Individuals decide either to feed the poor or not. Individuals decide whether to coerce others into feeding the poor or not. Individuals decide whether to steal or not. Theft is theft whether you break into my home waving a ballot or a shotgun.
Find a new country? No. I shall instead order you thus: stop stealing from me. Right now. Right this very instant. Realize the error of your ways and the moral indefensibility of your position. If this is unacceptable, then be man or woman enough to come to my home and try to violate my property yourself, without the government behind you. After all, you have declared that might is right, so let us see which of us is the stronger. You may redistribute my wealth when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers
First of all, where I speak from? The answer, Argentina a country that produces food for ** three hundred million persons ** (biggest per capita producer in the planet) and yet can not feed it’s won population of ** 35 million **. So we produce food for ten times our population and because of corruption, mismanagement and why not bad luck we can’t even prevent many argentinians to literally starve. How sick is that?
And that is my problem with this thread many dopers that posted here are as sick as the argentinian society. Let me correct that more sick because a) U.S.A is the most opulent country in the world and b) No one in argentina would dare to say some things that were said in this thread, even in oir deabuchery we keep some ideals.
** Elucidator ** as usual was more eloquent than I can ever dream to be. We are speaking of kids, hungry kids. There shouldn’t be a discussion. It’s not even a question of religion, as occidentals we are supposed to share the judeo-christian ethics that calls in this situation to help your fellow human beings. The concept people is solidarity ** because ** they are hungry they have the right to the food.
** milroyj ** you win my prize of “most sickening thought of the thread”, you never blame a children for their parents crimes or in this case mistakes or bad luck.
In order to improve my english I force myself to watch every week sixty minutes (in that way I can also see the same reality from a different perspective). I remember some months ago when dubya was planning to increase the military budget (we now know why he did that) they run a segment of food lines I think in Oklahoma.
They interviewed several persons in the line, a veteran, an architec who had suffered a disabling disease, a family that sent their children to school not for the education but for the free lunch (something that we found out is happening in Argentina too) but one interview that truly shocked me was the one of a family were both parents worked all week, cleaned their local church every weekend (a charity job) and still couldn’t survive on their own. Of course the conservatives in this board will argue economics, they have skills the market does not value therefore the low salary… well, fuck the market.
And speaking of taxes, poor people, as someone already mentioned also pay taxes. Each penny they pay hurt them even more than the million the rich pay. In that way taxes are unfair.
Somedays I think that a nuclear holocaust wouldn’t be that bad. In that way at least we could begin with a clean record. Lucky me, georgi is doing his best to create one.
Best I can do. Using the lower GDP figures (because I really don’t know which set of figures is most applicable to this problem) I calculate that $5,400 in 2001 is the equivalent of $4,838 in 1994.
Close enough for evil government work, anyway.
I’m sorry, have you actually looked at the statistics? Let me break the government outlays down for you. From FY2001:
2% Law enforcement and general government
6% Surplus to pay down the debt
10% Net interest on the debt
10% Physical, human and community development (outlays for agriculture, natural resources, environment, transportation, aid for elementary and secondary education, direct assistance to college students, job training, deposit insurance, commerce and housing credit, community development, and general science programs - NASA, etc).
18% Social programs (about 12% for Medicaid, food stamps, temporary assistnace, supplemental security income, etc.; and 6% for health research, public health programs, unemployment compensation, assisted housing, and social services)
18% National defense, veterans and foreign affairs (about 15% to equip, modernize and pay our armed forces and to fund other national defense activities, about 2% were for veteran’s benefits and services, and about 1% was for international activities including military and economic assistance to foreign countries and maintenance of US embassies abroad).
36% Social security, Medicare and other retirement programs.
All these stats shamelessly copied from the front inside cover of my 1040 form.
(posting from my aunt’s house, btw!)
Um, just as a hypothetical question, what makes your money, YOUR money? I do believe that bills and coins are technically, property of the government. (well, sort of, in a way).
Basically, the government provides the stability for you to be able to obtain wealth. For you to then bitch that they want something in return for this…well, it’s just stupid.
And really, to begrudge little kids food-that’s just downright greedy. Most school lunches (if they were the like the ones at my school), suck anyways.
However, one of my teachers in high school DID point out that he would like to see far less waste-the way some lunch programs are run, they give too much food to kids who don’t eat it all-a lot of it is tossed out. You might want to look into something like that.
But for god’s sakes, I can’t believe people think it’s stealing to feed kids. It’s not the kids’ fault. Get the fuck over yourself.
Estilicon writes: “We are speaking of kids, hungry kids. There shouldn’t be a discussion. It’s not even a question of religion, as occidentals we are supposed to share the judeo-christian ethics that calls in this situation to help your fellow human beings. The concept people is solidarity because they are hungry they have the right to the food.”
Than am I, as an Atheist who rejects any concept of a “brotherhood of man,” free to not pay my taxes? Hell, I can’t even stand my biological brother, and you demand that I must live my life at the beck and call of total strangers simply because we share the same species? Fuck that.
I really do not understand arguments like this at all. Why are there people who believe that it is ethical to force me to do things against my will?
The same reason we confine psychopaths to mental institutions. Its for thier own good, as well as for our own. Think of it as a form of firm guidance for the morally retarded.
(I’m pretty sure Ayn Rand is dead, but perhaps we should dig her up, just to be on the safe side. A couple of sharpened pegs and a mallet would be a wise precaution as well.)
Originally posted by The Tim:
Anyone who suggests that it’s not wrong to keep children in malnutrition deserves a snappy response. I ain’t apologizing for that.
It sickens me that people are willing to spend billions of dollars a DAY to unnecessarily blow up a country, but it’s suddenly too expensive to spend a few billions a YEAR to take care of our own. Perhaps instead of cutting free lunches, we could hold back on some of them million dollar bombs. Ya know, ration them out a bit. Or use the generic brand or something.
The war is pre-emptive, supposedly. Well, so is the free lunch program. If poor children don’t get fed, they turn into adults who can’t perform. In some shape or form, they become wards of the state. Feeding them doesn’t ensure their future, but it certaintly provides some degree of access to the playing level field everyone’s always talking about.
The same people who don’t think it’s the government responsibility to take care of the poor are the same ones who complain about inner city blight, our low performing schools, and high crime. These things certaintly won’t get any better by taking away funding. It’s not private charities’ responsibility to ensure the safety and welfare of society. That’s the government’s job.
How about it? The primary function of a corporation is to maximize shareholder wealth. Yes, to make $ for the shareholders, not to provide jobs or feed kids or anything else. True, recently, people have mucked it up a bit with the blather about ‘stakeholders’ (customers, employees, communities, the environment :rolleyes: ) but there you have it.
What makes my money, my money, Guinastasia? I acquire it from my employer, who agreed to give it to me provided I work a set number of hours a week. I (being a college student) also acquire it regularly from my father, who acquires it from his employer, who agreed to give it to him in return for his labor. I also acquire income in the form of interest on my checking and savings accounts, and from the small sum of money I have invested in a hedge fund. The key points in all of these transactions is that they are undertaken freely by all parties without coercion or fraud.
You know the Socialist credo, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” I posit that this credo is immoral, because it disregards all elements of freedom. If, in a purely Socialist state, I refuse to obey, the only recourse is to kill me, or jail me and “reeducate me.” I shall posit that the only moral credo is one that embraces such elements as these: “From each according to his consent, to each according to his agreed upon value.”
To begrudge children food is greedy? Thank you, I’m blushing. I don’t care about starving children. Don’t force me to feed them. If you care, then feed them, and persuade others to do so.
You write: “Basically, the government provides the stability for you to be able to obtain wealth.”
Yes. And I am quite willing to pay for this service. I am not willing to pay to feed starving children. So why should I have to?
You also write: “But for god’s sakes, I can’t believe people think it’s stealing to feed kids. It’s not the kids’ fault. Get the fuck over yourself.”
What does the lack of fault regarding the children have to do with anything? Theft is theft, whether you steal from me to buy drugs, or to buy a loaf of bread to give away to the homeless.
Monstro: It is not the government’s job to ensure the safety and welfare of society, whatever that is. It is the government’s job to ensure the protection of individual rights, and in this way, when all are defended, one can say that society is defended.
You live very close to me Monstro, within easy driving distance. If I give you my address, would you like to come to my home and dictate to my face what I must sell or give away in order that society might benefit? Or does your philosophy somehow pale when you yourself must carry it out, rather than the faceless IRS?
That’s not a Socialist Creed, it’s a COMMUNIST creed. And yes, there is a huge difference.
I hope you’re never destitute. I hope you never want for anything.
But what was it Hubert Humphrey said, about how you best judge a nation by how it treats its poor, its elderly, sick, needy?
Perhaps i can help you out here, chula. You’re probably thinking of What Liberal Media? The Truth about Bias and the News, by Eric Alterman.
Now, of course, some conservatives will say that this book is irrelevant to the debate because Alterman himself is a liberal. But it’s a very well-researched and well-documented account. A key point Alterman makes is that even many conservatives who constantly harp on about the liberal bias of the media have actually conceded on multiple occasions that the whole “liberal media” rhetoric is little more than politically emotional sloganeering that has little basis in reality.
Because my employer makes the check out to me. Because I am the person doing the work, not the government.
I am for school lunches for children, but let me make this clear: I am happy that some of my tax dollars go to free lunches, because I’d be giving that money to such a cause anyway. (Meaning, if there were no taxes, I’d be giving money to a charity that gave free lunches. In fact, I still do—through my church.) But given a choice, all things being utopian and perfect, I’d prefer to give an amount of money that I deemed appropriate through a charity or church. I’d prefer that the government not be involved. But it is, it insists I pay taxes, and so I do. And I’m glad that some of these taxes go towards free lunches.
Actually, it’s humankind’s “responsibility” to help take care of the poor. At least I think so. I am a Christian, so I think taking care of the poor is a Christian thing to do. I don’t necessarily think that the government specifically is obligated to take care of the poor. They just are doing it. Perhaps they must; or perhaps they have decided that if no one was taxed, (or taxed less) then no one would give to charities, and the whole world would go to hell in a handbasket. And perhaps they are wrong. But we’ll most likely never find out, because they’ll never stop taxing us.
Don’t force me to put criminals to death.
Don’t force me to drop bombs halfway across the world.
Don’t force me to pay for space research.
Don’t force me to pay subsidies to Big Oil.
Don’t force me to pay for sports stadiums.
Don’t force me to pay for children to attend private schools.
Don’t force me to support a president and an adminstration I didn’t vote for.
Don’t force me to do anything with MY money that I don’t want done with it. I want my tax money going to things that only directly benefit me and no one else. I’m not greedy. I’m just really really stupid.
:rolleyes:
Thank you Guin, both for the correction (although I do not think that the difference is salient in this regard) and your concern. I hope that you’re never impoverished either.
And I would agree that that is a good way to judge a nation. It is truly the best of nations that coerces no man into providing for those he does not love.
Pius, you have all of 3 posts on this message board and this is the 2nd one in which you threaten physical harm to others here.
Just so you know, I have used the link provided to report you to the moderators of this forum.
The government isn’t Christian, yosemitebabe, and I would hope people wouldn’t assume that society is Christian. As you can see from this thread, quite a few people don’t believe it’s humankind’s responsibility to do anything. I would hate to see a society in which Dopers were responsible for taking care of the poor. People would force little kids to confess and apologize for the sins of their parents just so they could get a slice of Wonderbread!
We live in a society where religion shouldn’t have to pick up the slack for anything. I don’t expect religion to catch criminals or fight wars. I don’t expect them to provide low-income healthcare or provide education to children. And I don’t expect them to care about me, should I fall down a flight a stairs and become disabled. As a taxpayer, the Church ain’t beholden to me. The government is.
I’m sure the fifty cents that gets taken out of your paycheck (or your father’s) for social welfare is really breaking you. It’s probably blowing your mind right now how much you’re spending for this war each day. Not to mention all the salaries of those police officers protecting you. And the clean water you drink each day! Can you believe how much the government charges us for that? How do you sleep at night?!
Grow up or blow up.
Psst-Shayna, I’d hate to see you get in trouble-we aren’t allowed to say we’re reporting someone. But I agree with you one hundred and ten percent.
Pius, threatening physical harm isn’t allowed around here.