Paul Ryan!!!

[diehardtwinsfan]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2029[/ATTACH]

 

sounds like one more big government republican to me who only cares about small government when a democrat is in office... Vote Gary Johnson.

 

One of the main reasons Gary Johnson didn't vote for a lot of those things is because he wasn't a member of congress. The list of people who have been in congress and voted the way I would like on fiscal matters is limited to pretty much Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul, and Bachmann is so flawed in other ways she's not worth discussing. The "Tea Party" was born in spring of 2009 and created a new era of Republicans which Paul Ryan seems to fit in. I have always been on board with "Tea Party" principals, but it took a really safe district or a lot of courage to take a "Tea Party" vote that would not change an outcome prior to 2009.

 

I voted Ron Paul in teh primary, but he won't be on the ballot. True that Gary Johnson wasn't in Congress, but he does have a track record as the Governor or New Mexico... He used the veto stamp something like 700 times.

[twinsnorth49]

Don't worry I understand. Political cheap shots are OK, calling someone out on them is not OK. The discussion was about charitable giving not the mormon church. I understand people want to project a boogieman image on Mitt Romney, but you have to expect when people from your side use the word immoral a significantly less insulting word might be used in response.

 

When Mitt Romney sits down in front of his computer and registers on Twins Daily, I'll worry about political cheap shots sent across his bow.

 

When you call Mitt Romney immoral for giving to charity your calling me immoral, and I'm going to take that personally. You got that? Or is that to difficult to understand in the era of Andrea Mitchell and MSNBC?

 

Exhibit A as to why your country is getting nowhere.

[Brock Beauchamp]

when mitt romney sits down in front of his computer and registers on twins daily, i'll worry about political cheap shots sent across his bow.

 

when you call mitt romney immoral for giving to charity your calling me immoral, and i'm going to take that personally. You got that? Or is that to difficult to understand in the era of andrea mitchell and msnbc?

 

It does not give you license to insult another poster. Period. End of discussion.

 

Have I made myself clear enough yet?

[fatbeer]

when mitt romney sits down in front of his computer and registers on twins daily, i'll worry about political cheap shots sent across his bow.

 

when you call mitt romney immoral for giving to charity your calling me immoral, and i'm going to take that personally. You got that? Or is that to difficult to understand in the era of andrea mitchell and msnbc?

 

It does not give you license to insult another poster. Period. End of discussion.

 

Have I made myself clear enough yet?

 

Nice bold cap locks post to a response to a 4 day old post. There is no personal insult that would be good enough to describe what you just did. WOW. Grow up.

[fatbeer]

You just insulted me personally in case you don't get it. Sorry for disagreeing with your politics.

[fatbeer]

By the way since I always get accused of watching fox news, which I don't do all that often because I can agree with myself in my own head, watched MSNBC all morning and haven't been couldn't be more confident about what will happen in 82 days. This was the week to define Paul Ryan as the wrong choice for VP and instead this week has been about reliving every Joe Biden gaffe relentlessly on even the most loyal network. if in 30 hours Paul Ryan still isn't destroyed the Democrats will have lost a must win week going into the conventions. Polls open in 1966 hours!!!

[Brock Beauchamp]

Okay, you're done. Take a week off the forum. In no way did I "personally insult" you. I warned you politely multiple times and you. just. don't. get. it.

 

To be clear for the final time, it does not matter what another poster has or has not done to you (or in this case, Mitt Romney). If you have a problem with a post, you report it and let the moderator staff at TD handle the situation. You do not start a flame war, you do not insult the poster (especially when the original "insult" was specious at best and definitely not directed at you personally) and you do not continue arguing with a moderator after being warned.

[diehardtwinsfan]

I really think the Republicans have set themselves up with another 4 years of Obama. Romney was by far the worst choice of the four that lasted deep into the primaries. His base has no reason to get excited about it. His VP choice is nothing but a bunch or rhetoric, but when it comes to actual results, has been very inconsistent... Ryan, BTW, used to be my Congressman. I don't get the love for the guy. He started talking the talk after Obama got elected, but never bothered to stand up to Bush and his big government ways. Voters still remember that, and handing Romney the President with a Republican congress will not lead to less debt... If history is any indication, it will lead to sizably more.

 

By refusing to hold Bush accountable in 2004, the Republicans rolled out the red carpet for Obama in 2008, and while I don't think his election will be nearly the landslide it was in 2008, I really think they are handing it to him again in 2012... when people like my parents are voting for Obama, I know Romney is in trouble.

[Jocko87]

Looks like I picked a bad week to be busy supporting the welfare state. I'm glad Lev was here to appropriately counter most of Pseudo's drivel but since I was personally attacked I'm going to take some time to personally respond, even though it might give the impression that I give half a crap about message board credibility. I made a blunt statement about the stupid semantics thrown about by the left and their (I hope that's proper usage) media, God Bless Lev for taking the time to write the volumes to help explain the nuances. I got what I wanted, which was a pretty good discussion started but unfortunately haven't had the time to participate. I have all the credibility I need in real life and have a plenty of ability to articulate what I believe in. The more I read from you, the more I see that you struggle to have something to believe in.

 

Getting back to the meat of the discussion, I read this thread 3-4 times and keep coming back to these gems.

What about people that can't or won't care for themselves?

 

I want a plan to take care of the lazy, not leave them out.

 

These quotes tell me everything I need to know about your viewpoint. Even if these are throwaway lines to everyone else, they speak volumes about your disdain for basic personal responsibility which is the bedrock of a functional capitalistic society. You are correct if you assume that I don't care about the people that won't care for themselves, I do care very deeply about those that can't. The elderly fall into the can't work category, by the way, just to cut off that talking point. They have worked, paid into the plan and earned the benefits. You seem to want to take care of people cradle to the grave, because it makes you feel better. Won't work, eventually the workers will stop working.

 

I do have a plan for the lazy, it's called the Freedom to Fail Plan (trademark) I personally have known scores of people who don't want to work, who would love to sit home and be taken care of and under your philosophy I guess they won't have to. The problem is that these people have made a basic choice, that government dependency doesn't pay well enough to support the quality of life that they want for themselves and their families. They also enjoy the freedom to succeed that my Freedom to Fail Plan offers.

 

These statements reflect your basic misunderstanding of human nature. People will rise to the level of what is expected of them. If you create a culture that says it's OK to be dependent on the government, that is what you will get. The left mostly (the right has played along) has worked very hard to remove negative stigma from failure in order to create a dependent class. The government depends on dependency, dependency minimizes accountability. Republicans and Democrats are both guilty. Paul Ryan deserves some legitimate criticism here but at least he is raising the issues to be discussed. The disastrous culture of the ruling class congress can't be changed overnight.

 

If you can't make the distinction between can't and won't, nothing anyone here says can help you. Feel free to wallow in your liberal academia vacuum.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Looks like I picked a bad week to be busy supporting the welfare state. I'm glad Lev was here to appropriately counter most of Pseudo's drivel but since I was personally attacked I'm going to take some time to personally respond, even though it might give the impression that I give half a crap about message board credibility. I made a blunt statement about the stupid semantics thrown about by the left and their (I hope that's proper usage) media, God Bless Lev for taking the time to write the volumes to help explain the nuances. I got what I wanted, which was a pretty good discussion started but unfortunately haven't had the time to participate. I have all the credibility I need in real life and have a plenty of ability to articulate what I believe in. The more I read from you, the more I see that you struggle to have something to believe in.

 

Getting back to the meat of the discussion, I read this thread 3-4 times and keep coming back to these gems.

What about people that can't or won't care for themselves?

 

I want a plan to take care of the lazy, not leave them out.

 

These quotes tell me everything I need to know about your viewpoint. Even if these are throwaway lines to everyone else, they speak volumes about your disdain for basic personal responsibility which is the bedrock of a functional capitalistic society. You are correct if you assume that I don't care about the people that won't care for themselves, I do care very deeply about those that can't. The elderly fall into the can't work category, by the way, just to cut off that talking point. They have worked, paid into the plan and earned the benefits. You seem to want to take care of people cradle to the grave, because it makes you feel better. Won't work, eventually the workers will stop working.

 

I do have a plan for the lazy, it's called the Freedom to Fail Plan (trademark) I personally have known scores of people who don't want to work, who would love to sit home and be taken care of and under your philosophy I guess they won't have to. The problem is that these people have made a basic choice, that government dependency doesn't pay well enough to support the quality of life that they want for themselves and their families. They also enjoy the freedom to succeed that my Freedom to Fail Plan offers.

 

These statements reflect your basic misunderstanding of human nature. People will rise to the level of what is expected of them. If you create a culture that says it's OK to be dependent on the government, that is what you will get. The left mostly (the right has played along) has worked very hard to remove negative stigma from failure in order to create a dependent class. The government depends on dependency, dependency minimizes accountability. Republicans and Democrats are both guilty. Paul Ryan deserves some legitimate criticism here but at least he is raising the issues to be discussed. The disastrous culture of the ruling class congress can't be changed overnight.

 

If you can't make the distinction between can't and won't, nothing anyone here says can help you. Feel free to wallow in your liberal academia vacuum.

 

While I agree with your points on the surface, the practicality of "Freedom To Fail" has some pretty awful side effects, the largest being "what do you do with these peoples' children?" Do you doom their children to failure as well? Unless you actually remove the children from their parents' care, you're essentially writing them off. There goes another generation. Rinse, repeat, you have a permanent underclass in 30 years.

 

This conversation should be far more nuanced than "let the bastards die in the streets". That won't get us anywhere as a nation... Not anywhere we want to go, anyway.

[Jocko87]

 

While I agree with your points on the surface, the practicality of "Freedom To Fail" has some pretty awful side effects, the largest being "what do you do with these peoples' children?" Do you doom their children to failure as well? Unless you actually remove the children from their parents' care, you're essentially writing them off. There goes another generation. Rinse, repeat, you have a permanent underclass in 30 years.

 

This conversation should be far more nuanced than "let the bastards die in the streets". That won't get us anywhere as a nation... Not anywhere we want to go, anyway.

 

I agree 90%. I also agree that it's pretty hard to have this conversation with any amount of nuance on the interweb, but I'll give it a try. What I'm talking about is a very deep cultural problem. Kids aren't being taught the right things- in the homes you mention, the schools, the stupid indoctrination cartoons or pop culture ______. It isn't unheard of that a child from one of these households to be a success though, very often it only takes one person to believe in someone to make a huge impact. If the culture of the nation is the mindset that anyone can live the dream, then more of these children will seize the opportunity. The other part of the equation is that if there are consequences for irresponsible behavior, then irresponsible behavior decreases. As it stands now, people have children because they can get more money for it and then they have their children have children to get a bigger check. That won't work either. We have to get to the point where the safety net is just that, a net. There has to be a stigma about being on the government dole. We have to have people hungry and fighting for their piece of pie. The sad truth is that to get to that place it will be very difficult on some people. I don't really know the best solution to that except that the Ryan plan phases in over 30 years to minimize that effect, cultural change takes awhile.

 

The 10% I disagree with is the dual assertion that I would be writing these kids off and that the environment would be any different that some of the squalor that kids these days are already raised in. We see success stories still somehow managing to come out of garbage homes. I say that if less of these kids are raised in an environment where "oh well, Gubment check comin" is the attitude more of them will be successful. I maintain that if you give the lazy incentive to be lazy, that's exactly what they will do. Remove that incentive and a surprising amount of them will go to work.

 

I realize that I may be oversimplifying things but hey, its the internet.

 

The other thing that I wish people would realize is that almost everyone in this thread is basically a libertarian (other than Psuedo) until it comes to the specific government program that benefits them. Like I said earlier, everybody looking out for #1 is very healthy basic concept. The general problem with that is that nobody wants to cut their own programs, this is probably a big part of why Ryan voted for a lot of the things he did, he has to look out for his district. If the money is being handed out he better get his for his district. This is why I'm a huge fan of term limits. I'm always amazed when I talk to liberals and ask them to explain their point of view. Some of them are pure talking points people like Psuedo but quite a few of them are very much libertarian and just don't know it. Keep the government out of my bedroom? Libertarian, but from the liberal side of things. Cut the military! It's to big, to wasteful etc. ( I happen to agree, I know because I was there) Libertarian, but still a liberal talking point.

 

People need to understand that the R and the D are not really that different. People on both sides agree that the government is the most ungainly, inefficient, ungodly disaster of an organization the world has ever scene but they are allowing themselves to be divided by minutia to that point where nobody in Washington is ever held accountable. Like I said, dependency minimizes accountability. In general, I support the tea party point of view here. Less government is better in every way. Don't get caught up in the kill the grandmas and put the babies in the streets garbage, nobody wants that, and that is my original point. Everybody wants to take care of those that NEED the help, I just don't want to take care of lazy bastards that take help when they don't need it.

[PseudoSABR]

Look, it's insulting to characterize people who disagree with your viewpoint as pure talking points. I get beliefs from my experience with people, not from the radio (as one former BYTO poster once accused me). I don't need to drag out my own experience (if you're actually curious, PM me), but I've rarely encountered people who truly need to be cut off and who through mentorship and opportunity don't desire to try hard, to acquire work ethic, to be a productive member of a community. Seriously, even the people with the poorest attitudes can become motivated under the right circumstances. That fact that some people rise from poverty to achieve success is notable speaks to its rarity. People rarely escape poverty without some outside assistance; I think it's absurd to suggest that such people are testaments to the fact the everyone can overcome poverty.

 

There's something really disconnected in your analysis of why people fail or why people choose to fail if you believe that children aspire to live on welfare. Seriously. No one aspires to live on welfare, especially children. (Of course there are people who see such few options for themselves, that they see welfare as the best path for their life, which is sad, not blame-worthy). I understand your point about normalizing welfare-lifestyle, but your solution (or non-solution) is just lazy. We have the history of civilization to tell us what happens when the poor and incapable are left to their own means. You get the plague. I mean are you actually imagining what urban environments would look like without social welfare? I don't think you're following your thought experiment to any arduous end; you somehow assume that pain and misery of poverty-stricken children will suddenly result in them trying harder at their underfunded and poorly-instructed classes, that some how seeing their parents and themselves go without food and healthcare will teach them the value of some good ole fashion work ethic. Again, imagine what wide-spread poverty looks like. There are places in the world and instances throughout history where you can see the ends of your philosophy.

 

Despite how you try to characterize my point of view, I'm not some dumb flower-kissing hippy. I don't want people to mooch, and I understand their tendency to do so. I think we can create efficacious welfare to work programs if we have 1) the funding 2) the policy 3) the jobs on the otherside.

 

If simple laziness were indeed the root of why people grow dependent on welfare we'd see jobs going unfilled and a premium on motivated workers, which would result in higher wages. But of course, that's not the case. At the base of your assumption is that there are indeed enough jobs to employ all of the people who are welfare which is a total and obvious falsehood.

 

Another silly assertion that libertarians like to proffer is that if we simply cut taxes on businesses, we'd suddenly have enough jobs to employ everyone. This is something I've asserted before, but we could cut taxes to zero and businesses would still not come to America for it's low-skilled labor. Our standard of living and hence our labor is far too expensive to compete in free world market. It will always be cheaper and more profitable to build a plant in Indonesia because their labor is cheaper (both because of economy there and the lack of civil rights and worker rights).

 

What is more slippery is how do you decide who needs help legitimately and who does not? I'm pretty sure that welfare programs try to do this, but with what success, I'm not sure. Even if we can decide who the illegitimate needy are, what happens to such people? Pretty soon you're breeding criminals, because desperate people do desperate things. I agree there's illegitimate needy people, but I think they are such a small percentage, that we can regard such people as sunk cost. A broken dish in a restaurant, to run out a dehumanizing metaphor. Any effective welfare-to-work program will involve fraud, and needs to guard itself against defiant people, but we can't simply get rid of the programs because they might be abused.

 

We all agree let's help people who need it and avoid creating a system that breeds ineffectual citizens. We all agree with that. But what I am not seeing from you is ideas of how welfare-to-work might operate. In fact I'm seeing zero ideas from you, just in your words, libertarian talking points. Which strikes me as lazy. (To Levi's credit, he's willing to get nuts and bolts about how to fix it, and what we find is that we often agree at what kind of welfare mechanism we'd like to see).

 

The libertarian policy is no policy. Again, which is damn lazy. There's hard work to do on social welfare, but your philosophy contributes zero to real-world workable solutions. You stand in the way. What I find so offensive is that you also seem so lazy in your analysis of why people fail and how people become lazy and what the day-to-day living on welfare is really like. I don't think you've spent a lot of time thinking about the roots of failure, when and where it happens, the psychology of it; much less, how to break people out of the attitudes of failure.

 

Again, no one wants to simply give a man a fish, we want to teach a man to fish; but the process of teaching/training is complicated, especially in terms of the unwilling or the broken, but it's totally within our capacity to design such policy and to people it with individuals who can get the job done. We need smart, tough policy. Not railing against the idea of public policy (government) in general.

[PseudoSABR]

I normally don't really care for Sully, but I think his recent take on Paul Ryan (and libertarianism) might coincide with some poster's here.

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/08/paul-ryan-vs-fiscal-conservatism.html

A blip:

I don't share some Obama-supporters' contempt for Paul Ryan. That's in part because he comes across as a sincere, decent, fine fellow - whose Randian worldview has produced a reformist zeal known most intimately to an adolescent male. Indeed, he reminds me most of all of myself in my teens - dreaming of how to cut government in half, relishing schemes to slash taxes and slash spending and unleash revolutionary growth which, in itself, would render all other problems more manageable. There is no libertarian quite as convinced as a teenage libertarian. And it's the adolescent conviction of Ryan that shines so brightly.

[diehardtwinsfan]

While I agree with your points on the surface, the practicality of "Freedom To Fail" has some pretty awful side effects, the largest being "what do you do with these peoples' children?" Do you doom their children to failure as well? Unless you actually remove the children from their parents' care, you're essentially writing them off. There goes another generation. Rinse, repeat, you have a permanent underclass in 30 years.

 

This conversation should be far more nuanced than "let the bastards die in the streets". That won't get us anywhere as a nation... Not anywhere we want to go, anyway.

 

 

Brock, you already have a permanent underclass, and as long as the economic setup is allowed to continue as it does, it will only continue to grow. The welfare system rewards mistakes, so there's nothing preventing others from continuing to make them and no incentive to get out of the situation. Inflation is a different side of things in that it slowly erodes away the wealth of all of us (except those at the very top who have access to the money before it's value is destroyed)... That punishes people on fixed incomes and slowly moves more and more people into these safety nets where they have no else to go.

 

I get the "what about the children" argument up to a point, but the simple fact is that since these programs have been put into place, there are more children that need them now. There will always be poverty, and there will always be suffering. Thinking that the government can provide some magic pill to fix all of that is everyone's first mistake. The other problem, is that somewhere you have to give the government control of parenting decisions. Is that really a line people are willing to cross? This is the same one giving the finger to the first ammendment telling religious organizations they ahve to do something that's against their convictions. What would stop them from telling you as parents that you cannot pass on your own moral views to your children?

[diehardtwinsfan]

I normally don't really care for Sully, but I think his recent take on Paul Ryan (and libertarianism) might coincide with some poster's here.

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/08/paul-ryan-vs-fiscal-conservatism.html

A blip:

I don't share some Obama-supporters' contempt for Paul Ryan. That's in part because he comes across as a sincere, decent, fine fellow - whose Randian worldview has produced a reformist zeal known most intimately to an adolescent male. Indeed, he reminds me most of all of myself in my teens - dreaming of how to cut government in half, relishing schemes to slash taxes and slash spending and unleash revolutionary growth which, in itself, would render all other problems more manageable. There is no libertarian quite as convinced as a teenage libertarian. And it's the adolescent conviction of Ryan that shines so brightly.

 

 

The problem from this libertarian has nothing to do with his zeal, maturity, dreams, or whatever... It's because in practice, Ryan is no fiscal conservative.

[TheLeviathan]

You stand in the way.....

 

Again, no one wants to simply give a man a fish, we want to teach a man to fish; but the process of teaching/training is complicated, especially in terms of the unwilling or the broken, but it's totally within our capacity to design such policy and to people it with individuals who can get the job done. We need smart, tough policy. Not railing against the idea of public policy (government) in general. Get off your ass and help come up with something.

 

You know, I would've responded to your whole post - but this just rubs me wrong. I respect your opinion Psuedo, but seriously, screw this smug nonsense. You know what really stands in the way of smart policy and fixing this process? The left's Mrs. Lovejoy impression every damn time this conversation comes up. That we're going to "dump" people "in the streets" and duct tape, spit, starvation, and other BS. This claptrap is what stops the conversation from ever happening in the first place. Hell, in this little space of the interweb your shrill nonsense derailed the conversation and it is the perfect microcosm of the national debate. Someone says "Medicaid reform" and the left-wing can't wait to start running ads about the elderly being shoved off cliffs by fat-cats. I could give similar examples of college financial aid, school funding, social security, and just about any other welfare program.

 

You want a smart conversation? Put down the damn bunny and the gun you have to it's head and let's talk. You and other of your political persuasion are what is stopping this from happening by your own version of "oh so you want the terrorists to win?" response to a perfectly pertinent question. (Iraq war, just for the record) As a libertarian I can look you in the eye and honestly say I have the same intentions. What you can't do in return is honestly say you mean to discuss them. The drivel you tried to pass as arguments in this thread alone show your real intent.

 

I, and I think most other libertarians at least, are ready for that conversation. It's you and the rest of the Lovejoys that have to back off so we can have it.

[diehardtwinsfan]

Look, it's insulting to characterize people who disagree with your viewpoint as pure talking points. I get beliefs from my experience with people, not from the radio (as one former BYTO poster once accused me). I don't need to drag out my own experience (if you're actually curious, PM me), but I've rarely encountered people who truly need to be cut off and who through mentorship and opportunity don't desire to try hard, to acquire work ethic, to be a productive member of a community. Seriously, even the people with the poorest attitudes can become motivated under the right circumstances. That fact that some people rise from poverty to achieve success is notable speaks to its rarity. People rarely escape poverty without some outside assistance; I think it's absurd to suggest that such people are testaments to the fact the everyone can overcome poverty.

 

 

I'm not here to insulte you or characterize you as something you are not, but I'll be real honest in that I've seen enough of the bad sides of society to say that relying on the goodness of humanity to escape poverty is absurd. I'm a landlord and own several rental properties, all of which tend to cater towards lower income individuals. I don't accept government subsidies because by and large for the most part, those individules are some of the most entitled-self centered people I have ever met. In my 8 years of doing this, I've come across 1 person who I would consider to be a success story amongst many failures. People don't escape poverty without outside assistance... with the exception of a lucky fuew, they don't escape it. Not anymore at least. There's a system in place today that wasn't there 100 years ago that virtually ensures that poverty isn't going anywhere.

 

There's something really disconnected in your analysis of why people fail or why people choose to fail if you believe that children aspire to live on welfare. Seriously. No one aspires to live on welfare, especially children. (Of course there are people who see such few options for themselves, that they see welfare as the best path for their life, which is sad, not blame-worthy). I understand your point about normalizing welfare-lifestyle, but you're solution (or non-solution) is just lazy. We have the history of civilization to tell us what happens when the poor and incapable are left to their own means. You get the plague. I mean are you actually imagining what urban environments would look like without social welfare? I don't think you're following your thought experiment to any arduous end; you somehow assume that pain and misery of poverty-stricken children will suddenly result in them trying harder at their underfunded and poorly-instructed classes, that some how seeing their parents and themselves go without food and healthcare will teach them the value of some good ole fashion work ethic. Again, imagine what wide-spread poverty looks like. There are places in the world and instances throughout history where you can see the ends of your philosophy.

 

You are right, no one aspires to be on welfare, yet here we are with an ever growing population, and the more social programs we add, the more welfare grows. Why is that? You've challenged libertarians on their "do nothing" solution as lazy. I ask you, how is it that your solution isn't any more lazy when all you are doing is throwing money at a problem which in turn actually makes it worse?

 

Likewise, your view on history is skewed. Engraved on the statue of liberty are the following words: "Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." This was the mantra in this country up until the Great Depression, and it worked for the first 150 years of this country's existence. There was no welfare prior to that and this country did just fine. It wasn't until the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 and the subsequent Great Depression which it engineered that required these social programs, and instead of dealing with the cause of this poverty, we allowed the corruption to continue. That system is designed to slowly suck money out of the general economy and place it into the hands of a few, and this is exactly where the US is going. You are correct to task conservatives on this issue, as they want to deal with the welfare without fixing the problem at the top, but this is one thing the libertarians have figured out. The problem is here because the system as a whole is stacks the deck against everyone else.

 

 

 

 

 

Despite how you try to characterize my point of view, I'm not some dumb flower-kissing hippy. I don't want people to mooch, and I understand their tendency to do so. I think we can create efficacious welfare to work programs if we have 1) the funding 2) the policy 3) the jobs on the otherside.

 

History says otherwise my friend. I don't think you are a dumb flower-kissing hippy, but there is NO way to create these welfare to work programs. The problem economically is that the government doesn't produce anything. It sucks money out of the economy that the economy would purpose on it's own. Likewise the jobs it creates don't produce anything either, adding another disadvantage. Less goods are being produced. Then there's the human nature side of things, in which people figure out how to game the system, and that happens both with the recipients of the aid along with the corrupt government officials that use the positions to reward people for things like campaign help. How else does a guy Michael D. Brown get put in charge of Emergency Preparedness and it's 150k salary plus benefits without a shred of actual experience doing these things?

 

 

 

If simple laziness were indeed the root of why people grow dependent on welfare we'd see jobs going unfilled and a premium on motivated workers, which would result in higher wages. But of course, that's not the case. At the base of your assumption is that there are indeed enough jobs to employ all of the people who are welfare which is a total and obvious falsehood.

 

I think the 16 million undocumented workers in this country might have something to do with some of this. I can guarantee you those individuals come from poorer backgrounds than the average welfare recipient and are willing to make far more sacrifices to achieve the American dream.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

Another silly assertion that libertarians like to proffer is that if we simply cut taxes on businesses, we'd suddenly have enough jobs to employ everyone. This is something I've asserted before, but we could cut taxes to zero and businesses would still not come to America for it's low-skilled labor. Our standard of living and hence our labor is far too expensive to compete in free world market. It will always be cheaper and more profitable to build a plant in Indonesia because their labor is cheaper (both because of economy there and the lack of civil rights and worker rights).

 

Now it's your turn to mis-characterize a position. Taxes need to be cut across the board, and taxing businesses vs. consumers does nothing but double taxes. Taxes placed on businesses get factored into prices, and taxes placed on consumers affect purchasing power, and all of that has a direct affect on the cost of labor. There are a number of libertarian tax proposals which would immediately result in lower costs and better standards of living (such as Ron Paul's plan which achieves it through gutting the government or the Fair Tax). While it may be always cheaper to build there, when the cost of living drops here, American labor will find itself in a better competitive spot.

 

 

 

 

 

What is more slippery is how do you decide who needs help legitimately and who does not? I'm pretty sure that welfare programs try to do this, but with what success, I'm not sure. Even if we can decide who the illegitimate needy are, what happens to such people? Pretty soon you're breeding criminals, because desperate people do desperate things. I agree there's illegitimate needy people, but I think they are such a small percentage, that we can regard such people as sunk cost. A broken dish in a restaurant, to run out a dehumanizing metaphor. Any effective welfare-to-work program will involve fraud, and needs to guard itself against defiant people, but we can't simply get rid of the programs because they might be abused.

 

Judging by my personal observances of the system, I'd say it's not very successful at all. And likewise, your point about breeding criminals is also offbase. Again, since the creation of these safety net programs, what has happened to crime in this country? It hasn't dropped. This is because the safety net deals with the symptoms of the problems and not the problem itself. No one will touch the fact that their money is devalued every single day, which is what is creating the poverty and creating the crime. As I said earlier, there will always be poverty, and there will always be crime. The foolish thing though is believing that the government can somehow erradicate it by adding safety nets. It cannot. And since the inception of these safetynets, crime has increased and poverty has increased. Why is that?

 

 

 

We all agree let's help people who need it and avoid creating a system that breeds ineffectual citizens. We all agree with that. But what I am not seeing from you is ideas of how welfare-to-work might operate. In fact I'm seeing zero ideas from you, just in your words, libertarian talking points. Which strikes me as lazy. (To Levi's credit, he's willing to get nuts and bolts about how to fix it, and what we find is that we often agree at what kind of welfare mechanism we'd like to see).

 

 

I know you aren't directing this post at me b/c I've stayed out of this largely, but there's far more than libertarian talking points here. There's a root cause that welfare-to-work does not address.

 

 

 

The libertarian policy is no policy. Again, which is damn lazy. There's hard work to do on social welfare, but you're philosophy contributes zero to real-world workable solutions. You stand in the way. What I find so offensive is that you also seem so lazy in your analysis of why people fail and how people become lazy and what the day-to-day living on welfare is really like. I don't think you've spent a lot of time thinking about the roots of failure, when and where it happens, the psychology of it; much less, how to break people out of the attitudes of failure.

 

I'm not sure you've spent a lot of time thinking about the roots of failure either. You sound just like a lazy Republican who says nothing but "trickledown trickledown" and ignores the fact that as implemented it's trickled up... Both programs quitely ignore the greater problems and both are nothing but a means to placate the bases of two parties equally bent on destroying this country.

 

 

 

Again, no one wants to simply give a man a fish, we want to teach a man to fish; but the process of teaching/training is complicated, especially in terms of the unwilling or the broken, but it's totally within our capacity to design such policy and to people it with individuals who can get the job done. We need smart, tough policy. Not railing against the idea of public policy (government) in general. Get off your ass and help come up with something.

 

No, it's not. Government is not the solution, and it only creates more problems. Policy won't fix this. Undoing existing policy will.

[PseudoSABR]

You stand in the way.....

 

Again, no one wants to simply give a man a fish, we want to teach a man to fish; but the process of teaching/training is complicated, especially in terms of the unwilling or the broken, but it's totally within our capacity to design such policy and to people it with individuals who can get the job done. We need smart, tough policy. Not railing against the idea of public policy (government) in general. Get off your ass and help come up with something.

 

You know, I would've responded to your whole post - but this just rubs me wrong. I respect your opinion Psuedo, but seriously, screw this smug nonsense. You know what really stands in the way of smart policy and fixing this process? The left's Mrs. Lovejoy impression every damn time this conversation comes up. That we're going to "dump" people "in the streets" and duct tape, spit, starvation, and other BS. This claptrap is what stops the conversation from ever happening in the first place. Hell, in this little space of the interweb your shrill nonsense derailed the conversation and it is the perfect microcosm of the national debate. Someone says "Medicaid reform" and the left-wing can't wait to start running ads about the elderly being shoved off cliffs by fat-cats. I could give similar examples of college financial aid, school funding, social security, and just about any other welfare program.

 

You want a smart conversation? Put down the damn bunny and the gun you have to it's head and let's talk. You and other of your political persuasion are what is stopping this from happening by your own version of "oh so you want the terrorists to win?" response to a perfectly pertinent question. (Iraq war, just for the record) As a libertarian I can look you in the eye and honestly say I have the same intentions. What you can't do in return is honestly say you mean to discuss them. The drivel you tried to pass as arguments in this thread alone show your real intent.

 

I, and I think most other libertarians at least, are ready for that conversation. It's you and the rest of the Lovejoys that have to back off so we can have it.

Look, I am absolutely trying to rub Jocko the wrong way, not you--that's where the tone is coming from. I am being smug (and I do take some pleasure in the irony of 'laziness' motif). If you want to bring some integrity to the conversation why don't you practice it? Sorry, if I don't take your offense seriously, when you whip smugness right back at me and let Jocko's smugness slide. Lovejoys? Drivel? I mean, come on, dude.

[PseudoSABR]

diehard, thanks for being thoughtful and thorough in responding, but it will take me a couple of days to retort.

[diehardtwinsfan]

diehard, thanks for being thoughtful and thorough in responding, but it will take me a couple of days to retort.

 

No problem. I have the luxury of teaching an online class this week with long labs

[TheLeviathan]

Take offense Pseudo and clean up your retorts. Your "dead in the street" nonsense you should be ashamed of. Its beneath you. To then call out someone else's committment to real solutions after that pathetic nonsense is embarrassing. You know full well I dont play sides. My retort to jocko was coming - you just jumped the priority list with your high and mighty crap after twice sounding like a smug, shallow alarmist.

[PseudoSABR]

Take offense Pseudo and clean up your retorts. Your "dead in the street" nonsense you should be ashamed of.

I'm not the only one using that phrase. Obviously, there's hyperbole on all sides. But I don't see much in the terms of counter pointing that harsh assessment.

 

Well, what would you do about the illegitimately needy? Like I said, I'm not seeing much to combat the hyperbole from the libertarian side.

 

(FWIW, I took out the last line of my post.)

[TheLeviathan]

I'm not the only one using that phrase. Obviously, there's hyperbole on all sides. But I don't see much in the terms of counter pointing that harsh assessment.

 

Well, what would you do about the illegitimately needy? Like I said, I'm not seeing much to combat the hyperbole from the libertarian side.

 

(FWIW, I took out the last line of my post.)

 

Did ya miss RP and I? You were welcome to weigh in, instead the bulk of your remarks have been moral high-horse crap about people dying in the streets. Like I said this reflects the national conversation. Well meaning people get nowhere because yhou hyperventilate about nonsense to take false moral superiority. That smug grandstanding not only contributes nothing it derails the conversation.

[PseudoSABR]

I'm not the only one using that phrase. Obviously, there's hyperbole on all sides. But I don't see much in the terms of counter pointing that harsh assessment.

 

Well, what would you do about the illegitimately needy? Like I said, I'm not seeing much to combat the hyperbole from the libertarian side.

 

(FWIW, I took out the last line of my post.)

 

Did ya miss RP and I? You were welcome to weigh in, instead the bulk of your remarks have been moral high-horse crap about people dying in the streets. Like I said this reflects the national conversation. Well meaning people get nowhere because yhou hyperventilate about nonsense to take false moral superiority. That smug grandstanding not only contributes nothing it derails the conversation.

You're disingenuously mischaracterizing my position, and I don't really get why. Reread my post, there's nothing about people in the streets. But whatever. Diehard had no problem taking my post seriously.

[TheLeviathan]

Dont remember your own posts from page 2 and 3? Not only am I not mischaracterizing......I'm quoting!!!! This is a really pathetic attempt Psuedo.

[PseudoSABR]

Dont remember your own posts from page 2 and 3? Not only am I not mischaracterizing......I'm quoting!!!! This is a really pathetic attempt Psuedo.

The posts I wrote a week ago? Oh right. I admitted to that hyperbole, but the most recent exchange of posts have (I assumed) been about my post yesterday, where I tried to be thoughtful and resisted hyperbole, even if I was snarky. I'm not stopping discourse from happening, in fact, another poster took the time to respond to each of my points.You've spent three or four posts trying to shame me; I'd say it's you who's being pathetic. What's your angle?

[TheLeviathan]

Dont remember your own posts from page 2 and 3? Not only am I not mischaracterizing......I'm quoting!!!! This is a really pathetic attempt Psuedo.

The posts I wrote a week ago? Oh right. I admitted to that hyperbole, but the most recent exchange of posts have (I assumed) been about my post yesterday, where I tried to be thoughtful and resisted hyperbole, even if I was snarky. I'm not stopping discourse from happening, in fact, another poster took the time to respond to each of my points.You've spent three or four posts trying to shame me; I'd say it's you who's being pathetic. What's your angle?

 

My posts generated the admission. My angle was to call you out for the pompous fallacy of belittling jocko when, to that point, your contributions had bee slimy moral high-horse grandstanding with an insulting string of hyperbole. Pot calling the kettle black. Don't present yourself as some moral beacon with nonsense like that. I don't hate the welfare system in the name of tax breaks or hating the lazy. I want it gone because it is eating away at the middle class. You have no moral highground and should be ashamed for the insulting manner in which you tried to present that you did. Carry on with diehard to your hearts content.

[PseudoSABR]

Dont remember your own posts from page 2 and 3? Not only am I not mischaracterizing......I'm quoting!!!! This is a really pathetic attempt Psuedo.

The posts I wrote a week ago? Oh right. I admitted to that hyperbole, but the most recent exchange of posts have (I assumed) been about my post yesterday, where I tried to be thoughtful and resisted hyperbole, even if I was snarky. I'm not stopping discourse from happening, in fact, another poster took the time to respond to each of my points.You've spent three or four posts trying to shame me; I'd say it's you who's being pathetic. What's your angle?

 

My posts generated the admission. My angle was to call you out for the pompous fallacy of belittling jocko when, to that point, your contributions had bee slimy moral high-horse grandstanding with an insulting string of hyperbole. Pot calling the kettle black. Don't present yourself as some moral beacon with nonsense like that. I don't hate the welfare system in the name of tax breaks or hating the lazy. I want it gone because it is eating away at the middle class. You have no moral highground and should be ashamed for the insulting manner in which you tried to present that you did. Carry on with diehard to your hearts content.

Pot calling the kettle black. Pot calling the kettle black. Say it enough times, one becomes exempt I guess.

 

Apologies to everyone witnessing this thread, for the current petty exchange. I think we're all better than it.

[glunn]

Dont remember your own posts from page 2 and 3? Not only am I not mischaracterizing......I'm quoting!!!! This is a really pathetic attempt Psuedo.

The posts I wrote a week ago? Oh right. I admitted to that hyperbole, but the most recent exchange of posts have (I assumed) been about my post yesterday, where I tried to be thoughtful and resisted hyperbole, even if I was snarky. I'm not stopping discourse from happening, in fact, another poster took the time to respond to each of my points.You've spent three or four posts trying to shame me; I'd say it's you who's being pathetic. What's your angle?

 

My posts generated the admission. My angle was to call you out for the pompous fallacy of belittling jocko when, to that point, your contributions had bee slimy moral high-horse grandstanding with an insulting string of hyperbole. Pot calling the kettle black. Don't present yourself as some moral beacon with nonsense like that. I don't hate the welfare system in the name of tax breaks or hating the lazy. I want it gone because it is eating away at the middle class. You have no moral highground and should be ashamed for the insulting manner in which you tried to present that you did. Carry on with diehard to your hearts content.

 

Gentlemen, please remember that we are all patriots who want a better country. We may greatly disagree about how to get there, but we will get there faster if we can find common ground.

 

It seems to me that there is an obvious way to sort out the lazy from the motivated, which would be to make sure that there are enough jobs for everyone. It sickens me to work 50+ hours a week while unemployed people watch Oprah. It seems to me that if they are going to collect government benefits, then they should be working. There is plenty of work that needs to be done in this country that would benefit our people and our economy. Our roads, bridges and other infrastructure has been neglected. We could also use more teachers and teachers aides. There are also lots of fairly high quality jobs that are going unfilled because there are not enough Americans with the training to fill them. This is where government needs to come in and spend money for the long term benefit of everyone, while putting a lot of people back to work. Also, there are a lot of jobs filled by illegal immigrants that could be filled by citizens if we had better mechanisms for requiring genuine slackers to take such jobs, and to this end, a more decent minimum wage would also help.

 

To me, the irony of this debate is that we taxpayers are going to pay for our less fortunate citizens one way or another. We can cut their Medicare and their Medicaid but that won't keep them out of the emergency rooms. We can give their kids crappy educations, but then we get to pay $35,000+ per year per prisoner to keep them in prison later. And we can starve them, but what's it going to feel like and look like around the world when the United States is allowing people to starve.

 

I would like to try to weed out the slackers, by offering them jobs and cutting their benefits if they don't at least try to work, but I would also like to do a lot more than we do now in training and employing the non-slackers. Basically, I would like EVERYONE to work at least 30 hours per week, except people who are disabled from doing so. And I think that with the right policies, we could find jobs for the vast majority of people who are now unemployed.

 

I think that the best solution might come if we can put aside party and philosophy and try to find ways to spend our tax dollars more wisely. It's no secret that governments at all levels waste many billions of dollars per year, and that there are programs that overlap and that are inefficient. It's also no secret that tax rates for high earners are very low compared with historical rates and that the top 1% has been thriving. If only the liberals could put social programs on the table and the conservatives could put tax rates (and the defense budget) on the table, then I think that we could still get out of this mess. On the other hand, our system seems to broken to allow for compromise, and the special interests are calling most of the shots, no matter who we elect. And with Citizen's United, this will likely get worse before finally there is a backlash and we clamp down on the corruption that comes from politicians doing things that they know are wrong in order to get money to get re-elected.

 

Canada, anyone?

 

P.S. - can we at least all agree that the billions spent on the drug war and on imprisoning users is a total waste?