Now THAT scares me.
I never understand what kind of “gotcha” game you are trying to play when you ask this question about feeding the homeless. I work with organizations that help feed and house the homeless. In the past week have I? No, but I have plenty of experience doing so. It has not made me change my mind in the slightest that there needs to be serious welfare reform in this country. If the government could run the system the way the private organizations I work with do, we would have, IMO, a lot more success in getting people back on their feet.
Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I don’t really pay much attention when presidential candidates talk about welfare and such. Doesn’t most of the $$ spent on welfare (outside of Social Security) originate in the states? And anything a president would want to do at the national level has to get through Congress.
It might sound nice for them to say “I’m going to do this and I’m going to do that”, but the fact is they really can’t do much once they get into office.
As a registered Democrat, this is exactly why I find her the most attractive candidate.
HRC is a New Yorker, a woman and a Republican lite. I have serious doubts about her ability to win in a general election against the white male scumbags the Republicans will likely nominate, just on general prejudicial grounds in the case of her feminity and New Yorkerness, and on inability to motivate the Dem base because she’s just too damn … Republican.
If she were Al Gore’s running mate, would that help or hurt the ticket?
Some of our worst breaches of civil liberties were during the Gilded era of libertarian idealism! Jim Crow laws! The KKK! Let’s not hold that up as an example of something we’d like to return to.
Welfare is partly federally, partly state funded, but at any rate very sensitive to policies set at the federal level. That’s why we speak of Clinton’s welfare reforms.
Who’s on top? If Gore-Clinton, she adds little. Her strength would be in states that Gore won in 2000 anyway. If Clinton-Gore, he definitely helps with his newfound elder statesmen/ respected environmentalist status.
I’m sure there have been party tickets where the candidates disliked each other more, but not for many years.
It would better to say it works for some purposes but not others. Stalinism is very good for heavy capital formation. Russia, starting from a barely developed industrial base under the tsars, which was heavily damaged by WWI and the Russian Civil War, was industrialized enough by 1939 to go toe-to-toe with Hitler’s Germany. I don’t believe for a moment that could have happened if Russia had had a free-market system during that period. OTOH, central planning is spectacularly inept at any kind of fine-tuning. From Economics Explained, by Robert Heilbroner and Lester Thurow:
Central planning is also not much good at innovation. No state planner ever would have conceived the Sony Walkman. (Whether that is a point for state planning or against it is debatable.)
It has worked out that way under ideological Communist governments, but in principle, economic planning is not inimical to any form of liberty but economic liberty.
Well, I’m sure the latter is out of the question. Gore has already had two terms as vice-president and no politician in American history, AFAIK, has ever sought a third.
Take a look at a map. See the size of Spain, then look at the size of he US. Inform yourself of the total population in both nations – and you’ll see that proportionally, as percentage of the overall population – just like I said – we’re now the NUMBER ONE destination for Latin American immigrants.
I’m also happy to tell you that we’re ALSO the NUMBER ONE destination within the EU itself:
Spain tops destination list for EU migrants
- my highlights.
Taken together both facts can only indicate that we’re doing something right – welfare estate and all.
Having close to a negative birth rate – as is the case in many other European nations, i.e. Italy – immigrants, to the tune of 5 million over the past 7-8 years, have only helped us grow in every possible sense. Problems a plenty, but we we seem to be more than managing then and turning them into assets.
Appreciate your concern though. And likewise wish you luck with that wall across the border – I’m sure it’ll deprive others such as yourself the opportunities you’re so fond of mentioning.
Apologies if I wasn’t clear enough. But yes, you got the gist of it. And its not just Spain, there are many other nations where life is as good and.or better than the US.
It’s just that one gets a bit tired of all the jingoism coming from your Great Empire.
1-Might want to look at that Atlas again. For a country our size, we have more than we need by way of National Forces, including the6th most powerful Navy in the world (tied with Italy). Then again, our dreams of empire faded long-ago. So yes, overall, I’d say we’re quite content with both our defense expenditure and the quality of our forces.
2-By keeping our defense budget low (compared to our GNP) we’re able to provide the social net I alluded to before and unless a major power outside of NATO plans to invade us, it is well worth the trade-off. Only possible “enemy” we have in the horizon is Morocco and I am fairly sure our current forces are more than enough to handle such a threat …on their own if it comes to that.
Don’t quite agree. I do think it’s rather wrong to place your military strength ahead of your own citizen’s welfare. With what you’ve spent in the debacle in Iraq could have provided universal health care for the next decade at the very least. You really think that’s “worth it”?
Called that one, didn’t I?
How’s that a response to what we all saw in New Orleans?
Do you really need to ask? However, that wasn’t one. It is simply an observation over the years and years of reading your posts.
I mean, greed is “good” according to you, right? So where’s the insult vis-a-vis the sentence I asterisked in the article since it says the exact opposite?
Can you quit spouting irrelevant fallacies and offer coherent responses? Preferably not peppered with silly emoticons. One can hardly “poison the well” in this instance – your posts are my cite.
Gracias.
The Jim Crow south was not an example of libertarianism of any kind-- gilded or otherwise. I would say “nice try”, but it wasn’t even that.
You’re the one who first used the word “during” as if it were dispositive.
She’s anything BUT Republican! The GOP candidates are all dancing around the abortion question, while Hillary never flinches from her pro-choice stance. She learned a valuable lesson about half a loaf being better than utter starvation when the first Clinton health care reform attempt was shot to pieces; that will be near the top of the agenda for a new Clinton administration. So will purging the Justice Department of all of Karl Rove’s appointees – look for women and minorities to get the nod there, and the Patriot Act would be pretty much eviscerated on the morning of January 21st. I wouldn’t put it past her to invite the Dali Lhama to say the invocation for the National Prayer Breakfast.
In the Rust Belt, I know, the unions still want their Democrats to toe the union line. That’s why it’s the Rust Belt. Out here in the West, we have a different definition of “liberal.” We liken the word to “liberty,” and we don’t see a lot of that in being dependent on a government welfare system.
When the state owns everything, it can martial tremendous resources. NK has nuclear weapons (something that eludes many countries who are seeking them), but it can’t feed its own people. If you need to get something done quickly, and you don’t care how many people you kill in the process, then a that type of economy works great-- especially if you have a capitalist economy to copy (as you note, innovation is sorely lacking in such economies). As I said, it can “work”.
There is very little liberty that doesn’t rest on economic liberty. When the state owns your breakfast, you do what your told or you don’t get breakfast.
This is the best observation in the last couple of days.
Anyone who wants to start up a debate on economic philosophies (preferably with a lot fewer personal snipes) is free to do so; I’m putting a fork in this turkey.
[ /Moderating ]