The Tea Party yelling is just so those in power can misdirect passions of the illiterate until they take their profit.
Yep. Anybody who thinks the rich do not prey on the middle and lower classes is a fool.
Tea Partiers Say They Would Absolutely Abolish Social Security
by sammielee24 108 Replies latest jw friends
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Robdar
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BurnTheShips
Free Market Fundamentalism > Corporate Welfare
SammieLee, some people need to brush up on their definitions. The title alone is all wrong. If it is subsidized (corporate welfare) then it is not free market.
As to other comments regarding some companies providing products or services to the government, that isn't, in and of itself, a subsidy or welfare.
BTS do you know much about Greek history??\
I am sure you know Greek very well. However the fact is, for the vast majority of human existence, humans have lived in a state of no archos.
But I will humor myself by providing you with a few examples: Medieval Iceland. A large stretch of medieval Ireland. Colonial and frontier America. Free cities in feudal medieval Europe. In fact, I could make a very convincing argument that the self policing markets of the burgeoning, burgher merchant class that were so frustratingly out of the reach of the agrarian feudal lord's authority are what broke the back of the oppressive feudal system and paved the way for the modern era.
Yep. Anybody who thinks the rich do not prey on the middle and lower classes is a fool.
Robdar, the rich conspire with the government, that is how they get richer in an unfair manner. If you notice, almost all of the richest of the rich, the Gates, the Buffets, etc, are generally very pro-socialism. Socialism never hurts the top of the heap. The top of the heap has access.
To those for whom Scripture means anything, ancient Israel was founded as an anarchic, free market society. Of course, it didn't last. Read this carefully, you will see all the woes imposed by Statism in all its forms on people. Conscription. Taxation. Slavery.
Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day.”
But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”
You statist libs want a king to go out and fight your battles. You need to fight your own battles.
BTS
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mindmelda
That's a good question David. It seems that capitalists are quite willing to get their hands a little pink when it comes to getting some government bucks. LOL
But, aren't we all? We've become highly dependent on our social welfare state in many ways. The elderly depend on it to take care of them for a lifetime of work and their contribution into it.
Is it the fault of the average middle class citizen that a program set up for them, paid for by them is failing because of government mismanagement? Should they be the ones penalized for the government's lack of ability to curb their spending?
As usual, the government plays, the average guy pays. I think government needs to be smaller but not the bits that people need. We'd all like to think we take care of ourselves, but the human reality is that we are social animals. We do poorly as individual entities, but well in social structures. We need them for our very survival, or we would not have evolved into the most highly social creature on this planet.
But, we also do poorly when those social structures become too large, be they government or religion or...whatever. It gets out of control when we lose the element of human contact.
As one anthropologist put it so well, we have Stone Age brains but we're trying to function in a Space Age world!
We're still essentially tribal creatures, and do our best in small groups. It's what evolution shaped us to be for survival. We have yet to cope really well with being very small cogs in very large wheels.
So, I understand the desire for people to keep things small in some regards. It's that "One death is a tragedy, a million a statistic" problem human beings seem to have.
Government is huge, and hey, quit blaming the Democrats for it all. Republicans, for all their stance against it, have also contributed to our engorged monster of a government.
I'm all for cutting out the fat, but not at the expense of the disenfranchised. Is there something wrong with giving a fellow citizen a hand up?
The average person on Welfare is a single woman, usually divorced or coming out of a bad or abusive relationship, with one or two kids. Is there any sector of society that needs our help more?
When it comes to so called "socialism" can we afford not to be a compassionate people?
Of course there are those who will abuse any welfare system. Even minimizing that, some will. Humans have always had cheaters among us, even though we hate it and when we catch them aren't shy about punishment. There are flaws in any system, trying to eliminate them only creates what is called the paradox of the false positive.
Let's say you have a million people using some sort of system of any kind. You put in a detection component that is 99% accurate at detecting a cheater. That's actually much higher than is possible, but let's just say it for our purposes here.
So, that's one percent failure. Times that by the million people and you get what...10,000 possible cheaters? Of those people, not all of them are going to be cheaters. But, you have to take the time, money and effort to sort out who among those people are false positives and who are real cheaters.
This is why we have a huge bureaucracy feeding off itself in running social programs. Quite a bit of it is safeguards for other programs. Is the answer to eliminate all programs to eliminate all abuse?
No. That would be illogical. It's more efficient and logical to accept degrees of failure in any system an allow for it, rather than spend outrageous amounts of money trying to detect failures.
There is the fallacy behind bureaucratic thinking, in a nutshell. The only way to totally eliminate abuse is to eliminate government itself! And we can't do that, we need social structures for survival.
But, this is why we get that "Big Brother is watching" in government, it is not because we're being compassionate to the poor and needful among us. It's not possible for the Republicans to try to eliminate all waste by eliminating welfare and other admittedly slightly socialistic elements of our democracy, but it's also not plausible for the Democrats to keep increasing the size of government to try to keep tabs on it all, either.
This is why both parties drive me INSANE at times. They proceed from opposite yet equally fallacious thinking at times, especially about waste and spending.
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skeeter1
I'd abolish it...not because of the good it does...but because it's been a HUGE piggy bank that Congress has raped.
Congress spends too much money. To pay for it, they have robbed Social Security. All the money that the Baby Boomer's put into the system....went OUT to meet the General Fund's needs. Now, Social Security is broke; and the General Fund can't pay it back....and Baby Boomers are not going to get the retirement they wished for. If we print tons of money to cover the upcoming payouts, I think inflation will skyrocket and cause imports to be super expensive.
In short, the whole country is broke. Like our families, it has to do something to "raise money." Taxes, yes. But, also sell its assets. The off-shore oil comes to mind...and the oil companies will be paying lease royalties to the US government to explore off-shore.
But, the question I have...is, "Will Congress use the new oil revenues wisely, paying down National Debt and propping up Social Security?"
Or, Will Congress keep digging the hole deeper?
Stopping Social Security would be a huge nightmare on those people who depend on it.
Stopping Society Security would also be a huge nightmare for our Congress; who depends on its revenue stream to fund the many "Bridges to Nowhere" and "Planeless Airports" and more.....
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cattails
All I want to say is that bunch of tea-bagging New World Nazi partiers better stay out of my social security!
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mindmelda
How about getting rid of douche bag politicians who do things with our money we don't like as a solution? There's a thought. Make them sweat over their phony baloney jobs a little.
Getting rid of welfare and social services would be no more effective in correcting the problem than abolishing income tax. All those "solutions" have been proposed and believe me, certain individuals have tried for years to abolish income tax, social welfare and social security, Medicare and all of it as "unconstitutional" and "socialism". It's all come to naught.
Because Congress constantly has their hand in the cookie jar does that mean you get rid of the cookie jar? Or do you slap the hands that are robbing it?
It's not the cookie jar's fault it's being robbed after all! If someone robbed your house, would you arrest your house for being so valuable and tempting to robbers? Or do we arrest the robbers?
Fiscal irresponsibility by anyone else would not be as tolerated as well as we seem to tolerate it from both the government and big business. They've got us conned into thinking that they deserve such leniency because we need them so badly. But, do we need them that badly that we're going to continue to put up with this degree of mismanagement?
I don't think so. Again, the fringe wants to get rid of the wrong thing the wrong way. You don't fix this problem by getting rid of the current government by violence, but by voting out the worst of the abusers. We're giving them the ability to do this to us and our government every time we vote for them. No wonder they think we're stupid!
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mindmelda
Someone said that socialism is great at the top of the heap. I'd add to that that so is capitalism. Hey, NEARLY EVERYTHING is better at the top of the heap!
Except maybe your tax rate. LOL
Okay, given that socialism is really really bad, why is that most countries now have sort of a blend of both capitalism and socialism? They take the best of both and seem to do fairly well with it.
One reason was just pure desperation. Post WWII Europe was pretty well devastated financially. Unlike America, it did not profit from the war. What was done was done to shore up what resources and money was available as a bastion against total collapse of the whole shebang.
Britain decided as part of that general "welfare" to give the largely impoverished British citizenry free healthcare, or rather, healthcare paid for by their taxes. It's not really "free", ahem. Anyway, when Britain pulled together and got back on it's feet, some people decided maybe they should go back to privately run health care as a primary system. And guess what? The people didn't want to go back to that, at least, most of them didn't.
Is it a case of once you get people used to something government provided (remember, they're paying for it with a bit higher taxes than we pay on average) that it's just easier?
I don't know, but there are a few detractors, and a few years ago they mucked it up with some damned reform that everyone seems to hate. It wasn't broke but they fixed it anyway, something like that. Not saying it's perfect, but it's good enough that the majority want to keep it. That's democracy, the majority rules.
But take the Netherlands, where the taxpayer pays a whopping 51% of their income for taxes. The wealthy classes are squealing at around that rate, what do you think the people of the Netherlands are doing?
Oh, nothing. They love it. Because they get damn near EVERYTHING subsidized, including housing subsidized by the government. Turns out they get a shitload for their 51%. And strangely, private enteprise and business still thrives in the Netherlands. Amazing, isn't it? The government subsidizing all this hasn't killed free enterprise.
You know what you get for that 51%? You get maternity and paternity leave of at least 4 months after a new baby...with pay. You get a free nanny for 6 months. You get your kids school clothing and food and supplies paid for. You get a paid for vacation of a month out of every year...and that is above your normal pay rate...so you can actually go somewhere nice. You get your housing subsidized regardless of salary. Seriously, even the rich can get subsidized housing if they want it...most of them want something more grand, but they can get it. A few do so they can donate more of their wealth to social welfare. Charity is HUGE in the Netherlands...because you can afford it. The average wage earner in the Netherlands actually has more money to spend on amenities, luxuries and entertainment, keeping those enterprises alive. Strangely, good old capitalism gets a boost from this slightly socialist government. Wow, who'd have thought those two could exist together? They do, quite well, in most of Europe.
Oh, if you're unemployed for a while, you still get all that until you can find another job. Even the paid vacation. Honest.
You get medical care that is good enough that all their health stats beat ours by a mile. As for social freedoms, they have all they want. Their is definitely more tolerance of human diversity than there is in America. You know, this place where we always brag about how we accept people of all sorts, land of the free, home of the brave. All that talk. Of course, a place where things like mild recreational drugs, homosexuality and public nudity are tolerated might be some people's idea of hell on earth. Better stay here.
As a friend of mine said after reading what people get in the Netherlands. "If this is socialism, then I'm a fucking socalist!" LOL (Can you say that word here, I forgot to read if you can. If not, just put little mental asterisks between the F and the K, please.)
The Dutch vote for all this, you know. It's not forced on them. They can get other things voted in, but this suits them pretty well.
But, I have friends in The Netherlands, in Switzerland and in Germany and in Finland. If you called any of them a Socialist, well, that'd be an insult. They live in democracies, in their opinion because they vote for what they want. This is what they want.
That IS democracy. Rule by the people. People voting in what they want from their government. If it was a socialist society in the sense that people really mean by that but keep saying socialist; totalitarianism, they'd get what the government told them they were going to get and they'd better shut up and like it.
By the way, I'm not saying European Socialist Democracy would work for the US. Maybe if we're smart, we could come up with something even better. But, we need something better than what we have now, that's for damn sure. And the answer isn't going to be found going back to the perceived "good old days".
Just remember, America "the way it used to be" included outdoor plumbing, legal wife beating, child labor and lynching. Oh, and random epidemics of typhoid, smallpox and yellow fever. Not really that great when you think about it.
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BizzyBee
Awesome! We need to be reminded that the government doesn't GIVE us anything - we pay for every bit of it. And when it comes to necessities - most of us are willing to pay our share.
I was listening to Sean Hannity today - briefly - it is a penance I do on my way to and from the gym - he was blathering on about the government taking "everything you earn, everything you've worked hard for all your life, the government is going to come and take it ALL." And I realized - that is a damn lie! The government may take SOME, maybe more than you'd like, but they don't take it ALL. And if you're poor, they take very little if any. And if you're rich, they may take more, though you probably have a way to avoid that. If you're in the middle you're probably going to pay the most, but never ALL you make.
Some may say this is splitting hairs and ol' Sean didn't mean literally ALL your money, but words have meaning and impact and the idea of the government taking ALL of anyone's money scares the bejeebus out of even people who will pay very little in taxes. Makes 'em a little crazy and they start hanging tea bags on their heads and dressing like colonists.
You're right democracy means we get to vote in what we want from government. It is still our money even after we pay it in taxes. Some things we pay for we don't want - wars, salaries for useless politicians, etc., but some things we do want and are willing to pay for - healthcare, social security, education, etc.
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WTWizard
I suggest giving people the option to invest it themselves. As it is, those living much past 2030 are going to take a bath on their Social Security, when the government is not able to meet its obligations. And, the way Osama Obama is raiding it, we might as well have invested it in the stock market between September 2007 and March 2009.
If people are allowed to opt out, and invest the money themselves, they would probably do better. There would be risks, but those risks are small compared to the certainty of the government's mismanaging your Social Security money. And, there would be the chance of making a killing--those who know what they are doing could have invested in oil at $35 a barrel and sold at $80, or invested in $270 gold to sell it at $1,100. Had I put my Social Security money in oil in 1999 at $17 a barrel, and sold when it topped at $147 a barrel, I would have had around 8 times what I put in. Is there even a chance of making that kind of money through the government, when they are going to waste it on initiatory force enforcement?
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mindmelda
Well, you could invest your money yourself and take your chances rather than giving it to Social Security.
I don't have a problem with that, but I'm sure a lot of people would rather just hide their money in a cookie jar any more.
I wonder how many people really would like to opt out of paying income tax (that's where the government being up in your koolaid started, according to many die hard government minimalists) Social Security, Medicare, Welfare and Medicaid if given the choice? I'd have to include FICA and all that too, of course.
We had a system completely without "socialistic" safety nets or interference a hundred and twenty years ago without any of the above. I guess you have to ask yourself if that's where you want to be again.