What makes you think that’s a good thing? The most politically productive period in living memory was the New Deal. How much of Congress did the GOP control then?
Why wouldn’t they have that attitude? They’ve been forced all their working lives - up to forty five years in some cases - to pay into a retirement and old age health care system they never wanted to participate in to begin with, and that they are philisophically opposed to. Now that they are reaching or have reached retirement age, you can damn well bet they’re going to want the benefits they’ve been forced to pay for all that time. This in no way means they actually wanted these programs to begin with, nor does it mean that they have no right to oppose further govenment expansion of entitlement programs now.
But them receiving benefits is contigent on forcing young people to pay into the system against their will.
Seems pretty hypocritical to me.
You’re assuming a lot of facts into evidence there. I’d say, with just as much evidence as you, that even those who didn’t like the program at first eventually came around to thinking it was an excellent idea.
And whose fault is that?
I’m sure some have, but what does that have to do with what we’re talking about, which is people opposing govenment entitlement programs while simultaneously drawing benefits? What would be idiotic would be for them, having reached an age where they have no income and no heath care, to give up the Social Security and Medicare benefits they’ve been forced to pay for all their working lives just so people like some of those around here can’t call them hypocrites. The whole notion is nonsensical.
The hypocrisy is the fault of the person who decries socialism, but takes benefits that are only possible from mandatory participation.
What the hell? That doesn’t even make sense.
You are saying that a person is hypocritical if he decries socialism but takes benefits that he’s been forced to pay for during 45 years of his working life through mandatory participation? It’s the very mandatory participation aspect that relieves him of hypocrisy.
Sensible people would not fault a man for taking benefits his govenment has forced him to pay for all his working life even though he philosophically opposes such programs. No one in their right mind is going to find themselves in their late sixties with no income and no health care saying “You know what, you’re right, I am a hypocrite! So you just keep all that money the government forcibly took from me all my life with the promise that I’d get a stipend for myself when I get old, and I’ll just go curl up under a tree somewhere and die. After all, it’s far better to find myself penniless and homeless and with no health care than for people of the type who created this program in the first place to call me a hypocrite.”
It is not his mandatory participation that is paying for his benefits. It is the mandatory participation of young people. His mandatory participation paid for his parents benefits. To be relieved of hypocrisy, he would have eschew benefits and advocate ending mandatory participation.
Yes, he would have to take a financial loss to maintain consistency between word and deed. Freedom isn’t free.
Yes, it is, in the sense that in order to get people to go along with Social Security in the first place, they were promised by the government that in return for their participation they would receive benefits upon having attained retirement age.
So he (to use an Oprah phrase) “paid it forward” in terms of his benefits. He was paying then in order to receive the benefits he has coming now. And the people who are paying now are doing so in order to get the benefits they’ll receive in the future - assuming the whole Ponzi-esque scheme holds together that long.
Not to sensible, rational people, he wouldn’t.
Freedom? How have we morphed into freedom now. I thought we were talking about hypocrisy? Besides, freedom has nothing to do with it, especially when it comes to a program where the government forces you and your employer to give up a significant percentage of your income for a program you didn’t want in the first place.
Well, actually it’s been mostly a transfer system and not a savings system. If it was mandatory savings (which social security is, but only in part), of course would be entitled to reap the benefits. But that’s not the situation. The Tea Partiers are a bunch of welfare leeches who want to cut benefits for everyone but themselves.
There’s another perspective. Social security and medicare can be seen as a contract between generations: the younger support the old. Elderly Tea Partiers want to cling to their own benefits while destroying the future safety net of those paying their bills – the young and the middle aged. How convenient. Either way elderly tea partiers who refuse to constructively drill down into the details of the US’s long run fiscal situation are exactly what they appear to be: cosplaying pansies.
Sensible, rational Scottish people, no doubt.
No. This claim misunderstands either the word “hypocrisy” or the particular claim being made.
If you’ve ever played the Parker Brothers’ game Monopoly, you probably know that there is a widespread custom of placing all the fines, penalties normally paid to the Bank (and sometimes even the purchase prices for property, houses, and/or hotels) into a pile in the middle of the board. That loot is then “won” by whoever happens to land on Free Parking. Although this practice appears nowhere in the rules, it is very common, or at least was when I was a teen.
I would always argue strongly against the inclusion of that “house rule.” It makes the game inflationary, reduces the skill aspect and increases the lottery/luck aspect, and upsets the overall game balance. Sometime I would win this argument, pointing out that the official rules specifically say that no reward should be given for landing on Free Parking. More often, I would lose.
Having lost the debate, occasionally I would run into an idiot who then criticized me for taking the loot when I landed on Free Parking. I would be called hypocritical for doing so after strongly arguing against it.
But of course that charge was wrong. I was arguing for what the rules SHOULD BE. Once that decision was made, then of course I wasn’t going to place myself at a disadvantage with respect to the other players. I wasn’t arguing that there was a moral wrongness in taking “Free Parking” money; I was arguing that it was a bad rule to adopt for the game. But if we were going to play that way, there was no reason I wouldn’t be justified in taking just as much of an advantage as everyone else.
I trust the comparison to this situation is obvious.
I actually agree with Bricker on this one. But Tea Partiers who go on and on about the evils of Big Guv spending while remaining oblivious to their own attachment to the government’s teet can correctly be accused of obliviousness. It would be like Bricker saying that those who take money from the center of the Monopoly board are lazy and shiftless, while helping himself to the funds when he lands on free parking. Calm, intelligent and responsible discussion of our nation’s laws and policies is encouraged for all of our citizenry. But some who are full of themselves deserve a thwap with a cluestick.
The difference, Bricker, is that even as you were raking in the Free Parking money, you would still be arguing that it’d be better to do away with that houserule in the next game. The Tea Partiers, by contrast, are doing the equivalent of berating the Free Parking houserule when anyone else lands on it, and then exclaiming “Hey, this rule is great!” the first time they land on it themselves.
Give me a fucking break, Starving Artist. A great many people on Social Security have received far more than they have paid into the system. A lot of them deny it like creationists deny evolution, but they are benefitting from taxes on the younger workers like me.
Furthermore, 75 percent of Medicare Part B benefits come from general tax revenues, not what people have paid in from their Part B premiums.
Medicare cost to the person on it is about 1200 bucks a year. They do not get it for free. Then it covers 80 percent, which leaves 20 percent for the Medicare user to come up with.
Agreed completely. But this statement is not what Fear Itself said in post 188.
Interesting stat on TV yesterday, they asked those who were going to vote Republican tomorrow ,if they thought it would make things better. Less than 33 percent thought it would. They are casting about in desperation, hoping to be saved . It seems the people have a sense of doom.
In a non-presidential election year, with the economy doing poorly…
Does this meet the definition for the incumbent party “getting waxed” ?
IMO, it does not.
See also: How to prepare for the right’s gloating.