Apologies for the brief hijack, but I just want to say that the line:
just really appeals to me.
My thanks to Fenris for the welcome, the Heinlein quote, and the timely link (I had just been wondering about what “troll” meant the other day.) The internet boards I’ve heretofore posted to are a little more topically specific, and more heavily moderated (a Simpsons discussion board and a University of Missouri sports fan site.) I’m probably just egging him on by giving him the joy of having affronted me, and I doubt I have the time to harass him in retort…speaking of which, I have to be at work in 7 hours and you’ve now given me the urge to pick up Heinlein’s “Time Enough for Love” 
Oh well, there’s always lunch break 
(Uh-oh, gratuitous smilie usage on the rise…)
Anyways, thanks for the 411.
Libertarians are the most selfish self centered group of people. . . . ugh.
I have been in the entire social security debate three times within the last 2 days, I am sick and friggin tired of trying to convince people who have money that some people who do not have money worked just as hard or harder then them but need the backup that social security offers because Some Bad Shit happened in their life and their entire life savings went down the tube.
If you have money when you retire, then so be it, consider yourself lucky.
Just be thankful that nothing really bad happened to you to wipe out your savings and that nothing bad ever /does/ happen to you now that you are retired.
Or else you to may find yourself in need of Social Security, which is exactly what it is -Security-.
I am not going to argue with you that it is wrong that you have to pay money into SS, heck, I agree, it wasn’t set up in the best possible way.
But excuse me if I desire to wring your neck when you start insinuating insults towards people who are too damn old and in too much damn pain to defend themselves and who worked honorably their entire life.
Can we move to a less, err, ::looks around:: volatile example?
Ok how about gays and marriage? Why legislate against it? Just end up amounting to a few changes come tax time.
If the bible thumpers are right, they are going to hell, what does it really matter in the grand scheme of things how a couple files their tax returns?
Trust me, nobody will think that the conserv x-stians are ‘accepting’ anybody, we all get the message, you are anti-homosexual, it is not going to be misinterpreted at all.
Why the anti-marriage legislation? Why the hard fights to block legislation that is aimed at providing legal acknowledgements for homosexual marriages?
Or heck, pick a topic. Really. The idea is why are x-stian conservs motivated to legislate actions that they perceive endanger my soul?
Just to clear up my statement about Social Security so nobody reads Com2Kid’s post and thinks I’m calling old and/or poor people idiots, and sorry for the brief sidetracking:
Social Security payments are based on what you pay into the system. Since the money is withheld as a percentage of your paycheck, at a fixed percentage regardless of income level or tax bracket, you could just as easily have withheld that money yourself and saved for your own retirement. This is possible regardless of income level. Since the adoption of the FDIC (an FDR program I have little problem with) banks are a secure investment for retirement saving. Thus, anyone of any income could take the 6% withheld and put it into the bank for a modest return. If you choose to invest in a risky stock plan and lose out, then you did in fact squander your money, that’s an assault against poor investment planning not economic class. Furthermore, since the payments from SS are based on what you payed into the system, it is not the case that eliminating SS would hurt the poor, since there is no wealth redistribution involved. The excess taken from the very wealthy that exceeds what SS is allowed to pay out to them is supposed to go into that mythical trust fund (but just ends up being spent), not to the poor.
The reason the government mandates that we pay into it is because it believes we wouldn’t follow the safe investment plan. Many people make bad investment decisions, or don’t invest at all. If they didn’t pay into SS, some people would take the 6% and go hog-wild at TGIFriday’s every week, or see an extra movie each weekend. Social Security is designed to assist those people who would otherwise have squandered the money, be they of any economic class. The poorest, hard-working physical laborer would be better off without SS if he is a responsible adult – he would safely invest the money. If he was irresponsible, he’s better off with the government forcing him to save for his future.
With safe investment options available, Social Security is no longer needed as the “safety net” it may have been in an era when banks routinely forclosed and life savings were lost. In my own personal experience, my father lost his life savings 10 years ago when an advertising partnership he was buying into suddenly folded (there were possibly fraudulent misrepresentations involved.) He faced the risk, he lost, and he didn’t pursue his legal options. I don’t need Social Security because I won’t make the same mistake, not because of any economic class of which I may or may not be a member.
Haha. Yaaaah, mistake. . . .
Lets say your house gets termites. Doh. There goes a few thousand.
You get sick with some Nasty Disease. Few thousand more.
Car breaks down.
Inflation catchs up.
All of a sudden;
your nest egg is gone.
Enjoy.
Clearly you will never understand what I’m trying to say. Yes, while you are saving your money up something might occur that would be a drain upon it. If you’ve been putting the money SS would have taken from you into the bank, you can draw on that to fix the problem. If you were forced to draw on your savings, then that’s something you wouldn’t have been able to do at all if SS had taken it. Social Security is just a bank account you can’t draw from until you’re 65.
There are three scenarios here:
A. Social security takes your money
B. You keep it and put it in the bank
C. You squander the money on risky investments, etc.
Disaster strikes, your car breaks down. You need a car to go to work, but can’t get approved for payments. You’ll have to buy cash. Under scenario A you have a secure retirement and no car. Under scenario B you have a choice between “a secure retirement / no car” and “insecure retirement / car”. The only difference is that in scenario B you can choose to terminate your nest egg if you so desire. Even in the worst case, major surgery, at least B gives you an option when A leaves you none at all, you just wouldn’t have the money for the surgery under scenario A. In the inflation example, social security will be in trouble too so it’s not reliable at that point. Even then, inflation would have to be really high (we’re talking 1930’s Germany high.)
The only situation in which your nest egg might be wiped out without your choosing to wipe it out is civil liability. If you’re negligent and cause an injury to another, your personal savings can be taken but not your social security (not yet…in your later years when you’re actually drawing off it you may still be paying installments to the person you injured if you couldn’t pay the judgment at once.) In that case, you are somewhat to blame as you negligently caused injury, so it fits back with my original post…negligence is synonomous with risky behaviour. You might say that in case of needing major surgery, there isn’t much choice involved if it’s due to a life-threatening condition. That’s true, but you’re no better off with Social Security, under which you have no savings to draw upon at all for the surgery.
Scenario B is superior to A in all ways because it allows you to choose the situation A would have always led to, or opt for a different choice. Scenario C, in which you squander the money, is always worse than scenario A, since in scenario C you have no options. C < A < B. This argument lends support to the statement I originally made, that you pounced upon as somehow “bigoted”, which was simply that Social Security is designed to protect people who would otherwise squander their money. I think my argument bears this out.
Sorry again to all for the lengthy diversion that is this post. I know Com2Kid won’t follow my reasoning, he’s just stirring up trouble. I couldn’t let people read his words, however, and feel I was being hateful towards people based on economic class.
The point of social security is that it MAKES SURE that you cannot draw on that nest egg until 65 and that you have to draw on it in a limited way after that. Many people who DID save up their money and who did **not[/q] squander any of it would STILL end up out on the streets if it was not for SS.
Theory be damned, SS comes in handy when otherwise the car breaks down and you WOULD have taken money out of your savings account (just a “Temporary” setback after all. . . .) and then something ELSE happens on top of that, (and then something else and something else and something else. . . .)
There is also the fact that I myself wouldn’t trust jack shit to my bank to keep for a very long time, (they are the same people that wanted to start charging me an extra monthly ‘proccessing’ fee because I had not depoisted enough money into my savings account at a fast enough rate. . . . yeesh. ) it is nice to know that should something bad happen, at least some group that is not motivated solely by profits has some of my money for safe keeping. Even if they do act idiotic in the manner in which they save it up. . . .
Ok actualy it is not there and SS is likely a lot less safe then a bank, heh, still though, it is contributing to the overall social good and enabling people who otherwise would NOT have any money left to HAVE something left. By putting money into SS people are /forced/ to find a way to do things,
That and also somebody working 12 hour+ shifts to get 15k or so a year isn’t exactly in the best position to figure out an invesment plan, yeesh. Between taking care of family, staying alive, and scraping up enough cash to eat, you really think that the person has ANY attenton at all to dedicate to figuring out their banks latest WeMakeMoneyWithYourMoney (Small Print enabled™ ) sceme?
ugh. scheme, scheme. Lots of other spelling errors, but that is the most bleeming obvious. . . .
Ok, so Toad-Boy is
[ul]
[li]In favor of the death-penalty for drug users but AGAINST state-sponsered morality-based legislation.[/li]
[li]He’s against the government forcing it’s values on people but he’s in favor of the government forcing people to save their money.[/li]
[li]Oh…and he’s against pro-drug Christian Conservatives (what???)[/li][/ul]
Let me ask the $64,000 question:
Is he really this stupid or is he posting whatever he thinks will stir up a reaction?
Opinions?
Didn’t you already ask that?
I think he’s as obnoxious and intolerant of other people’s views as the Christian conservatives he’s bitching about.
Similar to Archie Bunker, Kid takes a few nuggets of information he hears here and there and bases an entirely misguided thesis around it. Then he spouts off his opinions in the rudest, crudest, vilest and most in-your-face manner that whatever his message might be, it gets lost in his extremism, name-calling and incoherent ramblings.
To answer the $64,000 question: I pick option #2. He’s a bitter, bitter little man-- a raging ass nugget, if you will.
stv
I’m surprised that nobody has yet made mention of the “don’t be a jerk” rule; that’s what usually happens.
I think he’s as obnoxious and intolerant of other people’s views as the Christian conservatives he’s bitching about.
Similar to Archie Bunker, Kid takes a few nuggets of information he hears here and there and bases an entirely misguided thesis around it. Then he spouts off his opinions in the rudest, crudest, vilest and most in-your-face manner that whatever his message might be, it gets lost in his extremism, name-calling and incoherent ramblings.
To answer the $64,000 question: I pick option #2. He’s a bitter, bitter little man-- a raging ass nugget, if you will.
stv
Christ, people, he’s only a kid. Of course he’s posting inflammatory and illogical gibberish. This shouldn’t be much of a surprise.
Double posts nearly two hours apart stv? how’d you manage that?
Because they’re concerned about you, want you to stop doing the bad stuff, and feel that legislating against it will discourage you from doing it.
andros, that’s what I thought, but I seem to recall a post where he mentioned that he was, in fact, an adult. With a child, maybe? I’m not sure … maybe I dreamed it all … 
Fuck, regardless of his chronological age, he’s still clearly a kid, with naive and ill-founded opinions. Odds are pretty good he’ll grow out of most of that. I hope.
Bunch of items related to various things brought up in this rant and the commentaries and flames thereon:
First, both liberals and conservatives, as a rule, have a tendency to (1) become paternalistic, “knowing what you need” better than you do, and hence (2) “acting for your long-range benefit” by restricting your freedom of action in one way or another, along with (3) viewing with alarm the effects on society as a whole of allowing you to go ahead and do something which they frown on.
Second, the question in the thread title is inapposite to the rant in the OP. Very little of what is legislated by religious conservatives is with the intent of saving your soul, but of protecting society against the terrible consequences of allowing you the dignity and freedom to choose of yourself what to do.
Third, Com2Kid, I have to concur with the people who have identified the dichotomy between your other posts in which you arrogate to yourself the right to decide the fate of people who behave in ways of which you do not approve, and your own rant against people who arrogate the right, not to kill you, but merely to restrain you from doing things of which they do not approve. Rationality indicates you ought to pick a position and stick to it.
Fourth, there is a strong misunderstanding of the historical and legal concept of Social Security by the overwhelming majority of those who have addressed it. Social Security is not a retirement savings plan. It is a tax and a welfare payment. The purpose of SS when it was first implemented was to provide for the elderly who were working at ages beyond reasonable simply to earn enough to stay alive – and to fund an old age pension for them, workers below the eligibility age for SS benefits were taxed. The understanding was then and continues to be that working for an appropriate number of quarters at jobs where SS benefits are deducted unless disabled makes you eligible to draw SS benefits if disabled or when you reach retirement age. What you pay into SS is not and never has been a parallel to a pension fund – it’s a flat-out tax on you to pay retirement benefits for older people, who were taxed during their working years to pay benefits for the elderly of that time, and so on back to its inception.
Fifth, typically a Christian (and I don’t know of anybody else who goes around “saving souls”) is doing it because he or she believes in a God who commanded him or her to do so, and out of agapetic love for you – a feeling that you, being a human being as good and bad as himself or herself, deserve to know the truth (as he or she understands it) about your eternal future.
Sixth, in general there is a viewpoint among many religious conservatives that your unbridled ability to do as you see fit will piss off God, who will take it out on everybody, including said religious conservatives. This goes along with the general attitude that, knowing better than you what is wrong (at least in their own opinion), they are honorbound to do their best to keep you from killing unborn babies, demeaning marriage by allowing gay people to engage in a mockery of it, and so on. [Disclaimer: views in this paragraph are not those of the writer, but his interpretation of those of the religious conservatives.]
Seventh, similarly, a typical liberal (with numerous exceptions) is inclined to keep you from harming yourself (in a secular, not spiritual situation this time) by engaging in activities such as smoking, driving without a seatbelt, etc., that are “obviously wrong for you to do.”
Eighth, I’m not prepared to argue for or against the selfishness of libertarians; the few I’ve known personally have been among the kindest and gentlest of friends. The one good thing I can say for them as a rule is, feeling that society as a whole has no business telling them what to do, they are universally prepared to extend you the same courtesy, and keep their noses out of your business unless friendship or prudence indicates that giving you a courteous and respectful warning of a consequence that you might not have taken into account might be appropriately done.