2012 U.S. Presidential Election Supermegathread

Discussion in 'Serious Chat' started by Apop, Feb 17, 2012.

  1. #41
    travz21

    travz21 Muscle Museum LPA Super Member

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  2. #42
    Erica

    Erica Meh LPA Über VIP

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    Yes, this is why I can't stand republicans. They say they want small government and they want to crawl into your personal life. Don't do this with your body, don't put this in your body, you can't marry this person, etc. It's bullshit. When they say they want small government they mean they want the government to stay out of their side deals with big corporations
     
  3. #43
    SuperDude526

    SuperDude526 Well-Known Member

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    Y'know I've tried to keep my cool over the last couple years, but now I just gotta say it: libertarianism is so insane and ridiculous, that it makes me a misanthrope to just think people actually consider it a viable political ideology. For all this talk of freedom and coercion, what about responsibility and mutualism? There's nothing wrong with caring about and supporting your fellow man/woman.
     
  4. #44
    travz21

    travz21 Muscle Museum LPA Super Member

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    Libertarianism and anarchism involves much more "responsibility" than the type of government all over our world now, especially in the US. What we do here is we vote for people that best represent the way we want to live, and then the government forces us to live that way, whether you like it or not. There is no responsibility. The government does everything for us. It uses force and coercion to make it seem like you care. This is what liberalism is about. You want to help out the poor? You force everyone to do it through taxes (coercion), instead of encouraging people to willingly get involved. But welfare encourages the poor to keep living the way they are, making them worse off and the whole point of welfare counterproductive. You want to give people who work for low wages more money? You increase minimum wage, forcing businesses to fire people and no longer hire those who aren't worth that extra money. If someone is only worth $5 to a business, they aren't going to pay them $8 and take a loss. This doesn't allow unskilled workers to find jobs. It increases unemployment and hurts the people you're trying to help. To summarize, by trying to achieve equality through legislation, it simply widens the gap.

    You make it sound like libertarians or anarchists don't care about their fellow man/woman. Just because they don't use force to make everyone "care" for each other doesn't mean that they don't care. It means they use their own personal responsibility to get things done. They don't hide behind government to force their beliefs on the nation.

    I'd like to debate in more detail what you think is so insane and ridiculous about limited or no government.
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2012
  5. #45
    SuperDude526

    SuperDude526 Well-Known Member

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    You don't like it? Move to another country. And no, libertarians don't care about their fellow man/woman. I can't speak for anarchists because I've never met one.

    Also:

    1. Taxes are really not that bad, especially in this country. It's a tired statistic, but we have the lowest in the developed world.
    2. I would love to discuss with you why sometimes it is the poor's fault but most of the times it isn't but I'm honestly tired of going into it over and over again. Instead, read this: http://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=30894.msg1219953#msg1219953
    3. Increasing minimum wage and forcing businesses to fire people is a little counterproductive, is it not? All you're doing is changing who is poor, not how many.

    And to top it off, the fact that anyone would suggest a world or even a country with limited or no government is itself an insane and ridiculous proposition. I hope you enjoy Somalia.
     
    Last edited: Apr 19, 2012
  6. #46
    shinformant

    shinformant Banned

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    Does anyone here who thinks that welfare encourages you to keep living that way actually have any kind of experience of being on it? Serious question. I can't speak for the USA but here you get paid the bare minimum, unless you're seriously fucking the system, and it's getting harder to do that, to the point where the inverse is happening and people who genuinely can't work won't be getting any support.
     
  7. #47
    Apop

    Apop LPA VIP LPA VIP

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    This is actually a really interesting question, and it was posed in a Serious Chat thread recently but is no longer on here about drug testing those on welfare. But for an anecdote:

    My family was on welfare for a period of time when people were losing jobs and the market was beginning to fall off. Currently, we are no longer being supported by the government, but the help was needed to get us back on our feet. However, it is much more difficult to live lavishly on welfare than people think. Sure you could use the unemployment or disability money to buy a new TV, cellphone, watch, etc., but most people on it genuinely need it. There are 5 members of my family and we truly needed every penny of the welfare money for food shopping. It would have been very difficult to completely take advantage of the system for a family to squeeze all the money out as they can. In addition, for us personally, we feel strongly against staying on welfare out of pure laziness. The safety net is there for those who need it to bounce back to financial stability. The problem, to me, with welfare isn't people taking advantage of it (since all social programs will be taken advantage of in some way) it's the duration of the benefits. Recent reform to the length that people could stay on welfare was increased, which begins to make people more dependent rather than being self-reliant. John Stossel had a report about this on Fox that I found interesting:

    [video=youtube;-GqryVkPiKM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GqryVkPiKM[/video]

    Allow me to mention, I understood your question as "welfare" meaning unemployment. Sure there are exceptions to this as people need lifetime support from the government because they are unable to work through physical or mental disabilities. My comments were geared more towards those who have lost a job and are in the process of finding a new one.
     
  8. #48
    Promofrog

    Promofrog Banned

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    Whatever, as long as America isn't stealing oil anymore i'm not bothered.
     
  9. #49
    travz21

    travz21 Muscle Museum LPA Super Member

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    All you're doing is spouting fallacies. There's nothing to even debate with if you're going to be like that. I won't bother wasting my time with fallacy-driven arguments.
     
  10. #50
    SuperDude526

    SuperDude526 Well-Known Member

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    Likewise. There are just as many holes in yours.
     
  11. #51
    Todd

    Todd FLǕGGȦ∂NKđ€ČHIŒβǾLʃÊN LPA Administrator

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  12. #52
    travz21

    travz21 Muscle Museum LPA Super Member

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    I'm not sure you know what a fallacy is. And if you do, I'm not sure why you're equating holes to fallacies.



    In short, welfare is a forced charity and a redistribution of wealth. It's not only bad for the economy (in general it disincentivizes the recipient to be productive), it's theft. Without welfare, people are faced with life-threatening dangers like starvation if they aren't productive. This ensures maximum productivity. If they aren't capable of being productive due to unlucky circumstances, private charities step in. Under welfare, nobody is faced with such dangers. Now people have to weigh their options between being productive and having less leisure, or working very little or not at all and still living a decent life. In general, welfare vastly decreases productivity because it isn't necessary to be productive to survive.


    That's a very general take on it, but I'm in a rush. I'll address more later. Here's a little reading that has decent examples.

    "I remember a text book on economics explaining the rise of the welfare state in the United States as beginning in the depression era. This certainly does seem to be the case if you study the levels of government spending since then. For the first 150 years of our country, government spending was very frugal. A marked departure from that frugality begins with the FDR welfare state and government spending has taken off since then. Perhaps "taken off" is too mild of a description, it’s more like "overwhelmed the US economy."

    Besides wrecking the economy, public welfare is just wrong. It is morally wrong for the government to take money from people and redistribute it to those who they say are in need (i.e. more likely to vote for them). Having said that I want to emphasize that I am not against charity. Just the opposite, I believe it is the duty of every man to help out his fellow man as he is able but I am very much opposed to public welfare.

    Let me put it on the very personal level. If some poor fellow comes up to me in the street and asks me for some help feeding his family and getting medical help for Tiny Tim (who is a cripple), perhaps I will be moved with compassion and want to help. I would then reach into my pocket and see if I have anything there that would help. But maybe he needs a friend or a teacher and I could be that person to make a difference in his life. Maybe my efforts to restore this guy who is down on his luck could change both our lives. But the least I could do is give him a few bucks. But let’s say I don’t have the means or interest in helping out this guy. Is it okay for me to go to you, beat a few dollars out of you and give it to him? No, it’s not. That is theft. Perhaps a well-intentioned theft but theft nonetheless.

    In a welfare state, the government plays the role of the guy who beats the money out of you and gives it to the beggar. And that’s about all he does for the beggar.

    Public welfare is mostly a mean of re-distributing wealth and only provides a check, not the support, mentoring, friendship and respect that might also be needed as badly. It also does nothing for the giver.

    This discussion is usually included in the broader category of the proper role of government. The government takes money from us for a lot of reasons, generally for promoting the welfare of the people, so why is this different? Glad you asked!

    In the U.S., the government is supposed to derive its powers from the people. At least, that was the way it was originally set up. How does this work? Let’s consider the right to self defense. Most people would consider it reasonable for a man to defend his life and property. It’s something we almost all need to do and so it’s reasonable that we hand out that responsibility to the police and military. The important thing is that we have that right as an individual and we grant it to the government. The government is not doing anything we’re not allowed to do individually. If we are poor and in need, do we have the right to rob our neighbour? Then the government shouldn’t do it on our behalf.

    And that, my friends, is why welfare is wrong."

    Why Welfare Is Wrong
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2012
  13. #53
    Erica

    Erica Meh LPA Über VIP

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    I feel like your perceptions are all off. Your perception of people and charity. People aren't living lavishly off of welfare. Quite the opposite in fact. I believe most people are actively trying to get off their public services. As far as charity goes, charity can't take care of the lower class as is, but with no help? I mean if it weren't welfare 70% of conservatives would just be greedy little bitches. They don't want to give up their slice of pie.
     
  14. #54
    travz21

    travz21 Muscle Museum LPA Super Member

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    The majority of welfare recipients wouldn't be living lavishly if they became employed, either. So why bother working when you can live similar lifestyles without the work? I know it might be offensive to people to point that out, but this doesn't apply to everyone. It's just in general. There's definitely people out there who are unlucky enough to need assistance, but that's where charities come in. The people that actually need welfare is a mere fraction of the people who receive money from it. Before the welfare state became so huge, charities were an ample source of assistance. There's plenty of people who would earn less money if they actually got a job, so the amount of people on welfare just keeps growing and growing. Our government is also at fault for destroying jobs, too, so that adds to the problem.

    And there's nothing wrong with being greedy. You're making it sound like they owe people their money. Greed is what grows an economy. Greedy people own/expand businesses, which creates jobs and are the backbone of an economy. Without greedy people, we'd all do the minimum and have a horribly weak economy. Either that or we'd be in a lot of debt, which is exactly what's happening now. Greedy people aren't taking money from other people. They are creating wealth. There isn't a finite amount of wealth in the world. The poor is poor because of government intervention, and it's not the rich's responsibility to help anyone out.
     
  15. #55
    Erica

    Erica Meh LPA Über VIP

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    Lol I'm not having this argument. . . Again
     
  16. #56
    Apop

    Apop LPA VIP LPA VIP

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    Speaking from my own situation, again, it was just so embarrassing having to go and get the stamps and use them in the store. It's very unfortunate to be forced to leave on those means, but it's also dishonorable to just stay on benefits. Whatever the system, since it applies to such a large base, holes will be there and people will take advantage. There's not much to do: you can't punish them, you can't take the benefits completely away. Giving this problem of sorting out "who really deserves and needs welfare" and "who is just lazy" to charities is unrealistic and problematic. Just like there will always be greedy people in capitalism, there will always be an under-class and poor. Some people at the top are greedy, yes, and some people at the bottom are lazy, yes: but believe it or not, most are not. The few ruin it for the majority, and it's a shame such a morally correct system such as social welfare cannot work effectively in America.
     
  17. #57
    SuperDude526

    SuperDude526 Well-Known Member

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    I'm sure there are a few who ruin it for the many in other countries as well. I'm sure Denmark has their fair share of freeloaders. We just have to figure out via infrastructure how to identify problem-people like that from the get-go and make sure they're cut off after a reasonable time, or something like that.
     
  18. #58
    hybridsoldier1989

    hybridsoldier1989 strange things are afoot at the circle k

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    I'd have to disagree with you and say that President Buchanan was the worst of all time. Of course, that's me and my history major speaking.

    It's important to remember that while mainstream thought ridicules President Bush, he was the first president to win more than 50% of the popular vote and win the election (of 2004) since the 1988 Presidential Election. Just food for thought. Many don't agree with you. They just won't come out and say it.
     
  19. #59
    ernieball003

    ernieball003 Well-Known Member

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    Or more simply it just means that most people went sour on Bush and his administration during the second term.

    Also: [video=youtube;D5gXRPXs0PQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5gXRPXs0PQ[/video]
     
  20. #60
    SuperDude526

    SuperDude526 Well-Known Member

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    I don't know about worst president of all time, but worst Speaker of all time - and I don't remember his name, but this should more than say it - was the one in the late 19th century who had a chance to do away with the national debt permanently, and resolved to take on more debt because, as he said it, "Debt builds national character."

    Whatever your opinion on taking on national debt, that's a terrible reason to do so.
     

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