US Politics VIII

[BVS]

but many liberals here are scared to death of the possibility that people who need help could be helped by charity rather than the government.

Who is scared? I would love for charity to be able to do more, I just don't see how they have the systems in place to do certain things, i.e. healthcare.

No one is scared, you look moronic trying to play that card.

More conservatives give to and volunteer for charity

If you look at all the homeless shelters, orphanages, food banks and pantries in America, most are run by Christian churches or Christian organizations. Sorry.

So Christian = conservative? :eyeroll:

We ALL have equal opportunities to succeed (though some of you STILL think you can't if you're not a white male, which is completely proven false), but you want equal results. That's ridiculous, IMO.

So why aren't you a billionaire? Lazy?

 

[Danny Boy]

I'd love to hear how many of you who speak so bravely about socialism and BIG government being the "answer" and "wave of the future" would be honest enough to tell us that YOU yourself would benefit from "income redistribution" or "government aid".

I fully support a social safety net and a single-payer medical system, if you want to call that socialism or big government. I don't like the idea of hard working people going bankrupt because they get sick.

I would not benefit from income redistribution or government aid, other than the fact that I enjoy driving on interstate highways, not getting murdered in a lawless society, that sort of thing. I would guess that I paid about $65K in taxes last year including property tax.

I have never received a "government handout" in the traditional sense. I did benefit from low-interest student loans and a military scholarship, but both have been fully repaid either with cash or with time in service.

I certainly don't believe that only white males can be successful in America, but it is not a level playing field, and I have probably benefited from being one.

 

[Irvine511]

Charity will never, ever educate a population, fund an army, pay for your brain cancer, or make sure your spinach isn’t laced with listeria.

There are certain societal needs — housing, health care, education, transportation — that only government has the organizational capacity to address and regulate. It’s the mark of every civilized society.

This charity discussion is preposterous and juvenile.

 

[BVS]

Charity will never, ever educate a population, fund an army, pay for your brain cancer, or make sure your spinach isn’t laced with listeria.

There are certain societal needs — housing, health care, education, transportation — that only government has the organizational capacity to address and regulate. It’s the mark of every civilized society.

This charity discussion is preposterous and juvenile.

You're just a scared socialist.

 

[LuckyNumber7]

Can we also take a huge step back and acknowledge that charity is incentivized in your tax?

And “Christian organizations” are very giving it’s true. And they use the tax system to their benefit as they should. Being charitable is good.

And let’s not pretend like there aren’t “Christian organizations” who abuse the system for their own riches and benefits.

Much like my schpeel about immigration, have a good system in place that is a careful balancing. The individual is free to be charitable in place of the government. Organizations are free to be charitable in place of the government.

To think a system relying on charity would work is insane. Our current charity system in terms of taxation is widely abused. What makes you think people will give out the same money that the government asks of them? What makes you think decentralization can achieve the same type of infrastructure and mass equivalence of entities such as a military?

We have awful bureaucracy and the government is ran like a bad company who can’t control overhead, this is true. But your ideological response is arrogant and unintelligent.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Why does the government being bloated and inefficient have anything to do with what they should be providing their people, anyways?

Hey, the government should provide health care and a safety net for the people.

Ehrmagahd big guvrnmunt is eeval!!!

The government should be a more efficient entity... that provides health care and a safety net for the people.

Why do some have to make them into separate issues? Go team go?

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Many "christian" entities also systematically cover up the sexual abuse of children.

So let's maybe not hold them up as the gold standard of all things good in the world.

Oh wait, no I forgot... that's the Democrats and their "pizza restaurants"

My bad.

 

[anitram]

And “Christian organizations” are very giving it’s true. And they use the tax system to their benefit as they should. Being charitable is good.

It's also a lot easier to give a plate of food with one hand when you're holding a Bible out in the other.

Let's not pretend that Christian aid isn't often completely self-serving.

 

[LuckyNumber7]

Why does the government being bloated and inefficient have anything to do with what they should be providing their people, anyways?

Well, it means if they were better operated, they could do more with the money they need from our taxes. I mean, look at NASA. Love em to death. And they don’t cost us all that much. But they are definitely inefficient with the funds they receive. They’re not designed to keep costs down and do a poor job at cost control.


I’m not even advocating against big government. I would prefer my analog to the government, NASA, both receive more money and operate better with the money they receive.

Doesn’t necessarily mean the government needs more money than it gets now. Because the government is so cash-strapped routinely, they rely on contracting the private sector at really ridiculous rates, but for companies that are more efficiently ran than the government.

The irony of all of that is, of course, a poorly ran government tends to have its money ending up in the pockets of the private sector. Which is why I feel we need our public sector to be more competitive (which would mean paying them more and making them fireable).

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Well, it means if they were better operated, they could do more with the money they need from our taxes. I mean, look at NASA. Love em to death. And they don’t cost us all that much. But they are definitely inefficient with the funds they receive. They’re not designed to keep costs down and do a poor job at cost control.


I’m not even advocating against big government. I would prefer my analog to the government, NASA, both receive more money and operate better with the money they receive.

Doesn’t necessarily mean the government needs more money than it gets now. Because the government is so cash-strapped routinely, they rely on contracting the private sector at really ridiculous rates, but for companies that are more efficiently ran than the government.

The irony of all of that is, of course, a poorly ran government tends to have its money ending up in the pockets of the private sector. Which is why I feel we need our public sector to be more competitive (which would mean paying them more and making them fireable).

No I'm agreeing with you.

I think government is too bloated and want to see things done in a much more efficient way.

I also think government should be responsible for the welfare of it's citizens, especially those who are poor and destitute.

I don't understand why, other than just straight sports team politics, that one (jesus freak) has to agree with either one or the other.

 

[BEAL]

We could start by making some cuts to the military budget.

 

[iron yuppie]

There are certain societal needs — housing, health care, education, transportation — that only government has the organizational capacity to address and regulate.

Yeah these are called "public goods." I think there is an interesting conversation to be had about what qualifies as a public good (mail delivery for example could probably be handled more efficiently in the private sector), but only the most ardent of libertarians would deny that the concept makes sense.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

many liberals here are scared to death of the possibility that people who need help could be helped by charity rather than the government. Which again, takes the onus off of most people who typically scream for socialism or more and more free stuff.

Wow. Speaking as one of those liberals, no. So much no. What in the hell are you on about with this idea?

For what it's worth, my family has benefited from some very generous, helpful people and charity when we've found ourselves on hard times. And we've also done our part to give back over the years as well. So what do you say to that?

I'd love to hear how many of you who speak so bravely about socialism and BIG government being the "answer" and "wave of the future" would be honest enough to tell us that YOU yourself would benefit from "income redistribution" or "government aid".

Yes, my family did benefit from the government aid we received. The food stamps we got allowed us to be able to have stuff to eat, the Medicaid we used at least tried to help a little bit with my dad's medical bills-without that I think we'd have been completely and totally fucked financially. I'm glad that stuff was there to help us through rough times.

Having said that, I wish we didn't have to resort to those things only when times were tough. I wish we didn't have to rely on food stamps at all just to be able to afford one of the most basic necessities that everyone should have access to. I wish our system across the board were better, so that we had an affordable healthcare system that could've helped my dad a lot more easily AND helped spare my family piles of medical bills and bankruptcy. I wish my mom could've found a better-paying job that would've allowed her to have enough money to cover food and rent and heat, and not have to choose between the three. And it would've also been nice if her job was one that would've allowed her the necessary time off that she needed to take my dad to a city two hours away for medical treatments, both so she could be by his side as he went through all this stuff and so we didn't have to constantly rely on an ambulance to take him, thus jacking up our medical bills even further.

I think fixing our systems in this country at large would go a long way towards helping with the above issues.

No I'm agreeing with you.

I think government is too bloated and want to see things done in a much more efficient way.

I also think government should be responsible for the welfare of it's citizens, especially those who are poor and destitute.

I don't understand why, other than just straight sports team politics, that one (jesus freak) has to agree with either one or the other.

This . Same with the charity versus government aid debate. Why does it have to be one or the other? Why not utilize both?

 

[Macfistowannabe]

oh that's right you guys, we forgot about that time woodrow wilson bragged about how easy it was for him to sexually assault women, and all the praise theodore roosevelt heaped on foreign enemy dictators. i guess they're all the same.

So let's overlook the transition from a relatively defensive military to one that acts as world cop? That move was clearly rooted in this period. A little more important than locker room banter (tasteless as it was).

TR transformed the Presidency into legislator-in-chief with over 1,000 Executive Orders. "To hell with the Constitution when the people want coal."

Woodrow Wilson manipulated the country into WWI with an overtly hateful campaign against German-Americans. That would have been nice to avoid. The Espionage Act is still on the books to this day, and occasionally is used by sitting presidents to threaten their political opponents. And poor Eugene Debs...

 

[Macfistowannabe]

It's trendy to think the current POTUS is always the worst, but it doesn't have a lot of merit.

 

[anitram]

It's trendy to think the current POTUS is always the worst, but it doesn't have a lot of merit.

Oh no, Trump is definitely winning when it comes to that distinction.

 

[LuckyNumber7]

I just love how “conservatism” has such an ironic branding. Peef tends to say this a lot, but the true conservatives are the mainstream democrats, akin to Britain’s Conservative Party. What the hell are republicans conserving? Tearing everything down, deconstructing the government and a century’s worth of work to return to 1912 is not conservative. It’s liberal as fuck. It’s progressive, too. Just in the opposite direction. Correct me if I’m wrong but being a conservative does require that you conserve something... taxes, nature, culture, practices and procedures, customs, heritage, whatever.

 

[Macfistowannabe]

Oh no, Trump is definitely winning when it comes to that distinction.

Is he "sick of winning?" [emoji1]

 

[DaveC]

So let's overlook the transition from a relatively defensive military to one that acts as world cop? That move was clearly rooted in this period. A little more important than locker room banter (tasteless as it was).

TR transformed the Presidency into legislator-in-chief with over 1,000 Executive Orders. "To hell with the Constitution when the people want coal."

Woodrow Wilson manipulated the country into WWI with an overtly hateful campaign against German-Americans. That would have been nice to avoid. The Espionage Act is still on the books to this day, and occasionally is used by sitting presidents to threaten their political opponents. And poor Eugene Debs...

"locker room banter" - first of all fuck right off with this rape-enabling bullshit. that's not simply "tasteless" or "the way boys talk" and in any locker room i've ever been in if some dude ever bragged about sexually assaulting women or grabbing them without their consent they would have been shown the door. this shit makes us men sound like we're all monsters when we're behind closed doors and i'm sick of assholes like trump and his defenders trying to lump the rest of us in with their despicable behaviour. i'm tired of hearing people excuse and dismiss an unprovoked admission of repeated sexual assault by trying to paint it as just tasteless jokes.

i don't know where on earth you got that ridiculous /r/badhistory idea of woodrow wilson deliberately manipulating the US into world war 1. he actively tried to keep the US out of the war and even when all his generals and every single member of his cabinet were exhorting him to declare war on germany after the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare and the revelation of the zimmermann telegram, he still held out for months hoping to avoid it. the entire purpose of the 14 points was to end the war in europe before it drew the americans in. in december 1916 he made a proposal for a peace conference to both sides that was turned down. anti-german propaganda was a real thing but that was the media behind that, not the federal government, at least before war was declared. did you just make all that shit up? you have this completely and utterly backwards.

 

[LuckyNumber7]

So let's overlook the transition from a relatively defensive military to one that acts as world cop? That move was clearly rooted in this period. A little more important than locker room banter (tasteless as it was).

TR transformed the Presidency into legislator-in-chief with over 1,000 Executive Orders. "To hell with the Constitution when the people want coal."

Woodrow Wilson manipulated the country into WWI with an overtly hateful campaign against German-Americans. That would have been nice to avoid. The Espionage Act is still on the books to this day, and occasionally is used by sitting presidents to threaten their political opponents. And poor Eugene Debs...

Woodrow Wilson was a racist scumbag and a bad president. Teddy Roosevelt, who has many political practices I disagree with a lot more, was a much better human being, but also an imperialist scumbag.

Bringing up two presidents (who are frequently cited as some of the greatest) does not excuse Donald Trump, who has to this point degraded the value of the office.

One might comment on how he must be smart, since he became president and is a billionaire and what have you. Have you also considered how many celebrities exist by luck, chance, endowment, or the lot?

Presidents like George W. Bush appeared to be morons by lack of charisma or incredibly poor decisions. and Indeed, he was a bad president. But Bush wasn’t stupid. The reason why you have individuals on their way out of the White House such as Rex Tillerson having repeatedly called the president a “fucking moron,” Omarosa suggesting he is incapable of handling complex information, and even the likes to Steve Bannon having less than supportive things to say about the president’s decision making skills, is because the man is as simple as he comes off. He speaks like a moron because he is a moron. He’s relied on charisma, bravado, and confidence. It gets A LOT of people in life to A LOT of places. It’s the extrovert’s camouflage. Folks like George W. Bush, a total introvert, suffer the opposite effect.

 

[Macfistowannabe]

I don't like his position on trade, but I also don't see him getting a Smoot-Hawley tariff passed to crash the economy. I also don't see him waging WWIII (wasn't W far worse in this regard?) Or getting nearly a million people killed in a civil war. Or starting internment camps. Or dropping atomic bombs. The list goes on.

He has plenty of issues, but he's hardly unique on the big stuff.

 

[Macfistowannabe]

Woodrow Wilson was a racist scumbag and a bad president. Teddy Roosevelt, who has many political practices I disagree with a lot more, was a much better human being, but also an imperialist scumbag.

Bringing up two presidents (who are frequently cited as some of the greatest) does not excuse Donald Trump, who has to this point degraded the value of the office.

...

He speaks like a moron because he is a moron. He’s relied on charisma, bravado, and confidence. It gets A LOT of people in life to A LOT of places. It’s the extrovert’s camouflage. Folks like George W. Bush, a total introvert, suffer the opposite effect.

I don't disagree that he comes off as cocky and bombastic, but it seems like a lot of emphasis is on style, of all things. It might bear weight from a branding standpoint in the age of 24/7 media, but it seems a lot less important than historical impact of his imprint and governing style. On this front, he doesn't represent much of a transition.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

It's trendy to think the current POTUS is always the worst, but it doesn't have a lot of merit.

Yeaaaaaa if it's trendy then consider myself an early adaptor. I've thought he was a piece of shit for years.

 

[DaveC]

today i learned that starting needless trade wars with your neighbours with the express purpose of wrecking their economies and threatening to abandon your closest allies while simultaneously praising and cozying up to dictators who have been america's enemies for decades "doesn't represent much of a transition".

 

[LuckyNumber7]

I don't like his position on trade, but I also don't see him getting a Smoot-Hawley tariff passed to crash the economy. I also don't see him waging WWIII (wasn't W far worse in this regard?) Or getting nearly a million people killed in a civil war. Or starting internment camps. Or dropping atomic bombs. The list goes on.

He has plenty of issues, but he's hardly unique on the big stuff.

I would venture to say a WW3 is bigger than any one President. That doesn’t happen in 4-8 years. That brews.

You’re right. W has blood of hundreds of thousand of people on his hands. But was he waving WW3? No definitely not. He was picking on a target that came with no consequences amongst other powerful nations. I’d argue W made no motion towards a WW3. Trump, on the other hand, has aggressively targeted China politically and economically, and been simultaneously erratic on North Korea.

We aren’t close to WW3, but war in Iraq never put us any closer. Instability in the Korean Peninsula and deteriorating relationships with North Korea’s ally and militarily aggressive superpower are absolutely steps towards WW3.

We need to be realistic here. You don’t see Trump dropping a nuclear bomb because this isn’t 1945 and we aren’t participating in a decade-old world war where the very existence of a nuclear bomb would make us the world’s new leader without any true understanding of the utter devastation the world may face from it.

There are no internment camps because this isn’t 1945 and we aren’t at war with Japan or any other superpower and there is no level of paranoia and societal racism to that level exacerbated by a war.

What makes you think Trump wouldn’t do these things if he was Harry Truman or FDR? He absolutely would. He has already suggested he would, multiple times.

 

[Macfistowannabe]

i don't know where on earth you got that ridiculous /r/badhistory idea of woodrow wilson deliberately manipulating the US into world war 1. he actively tried to keep the US out of the war and even when all his generals and every single member of his cabinet were exhorting him to declare war on germany after the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare and the revelation of the zimmermann telegram, he still held out for months hoping to avoid it. the entire purpose of the 14 points was to end the war in europe before it drew the americans in. in december 1916 he made a proposal for a peace conference to both sides that was turned down. anti-german propaganda was a real thing but that was the media behind that, not the federal government, at least before war was declared. did you just make all that shit up? you have this completely and utterly backwards.

Not unheard of is a politician's "private position" and one he takes publicly.

In a private remark...

"England is fighting our fight and you may well understand that I shall not, in the present state of the world's affairs, place obstacles in her way... I will not take any action to embarrass England when she is fighting for her life and the life of the world."

This should explain his excusing of British violations of international law, while also threatening to hold Germany strictly accountable for American lives and vessels. Neutrality? Not quite.

"Why be shocked by the drowning of a few people, if there is to be no objection to starving a nation?"
- William Jennings Bryan

 

[Macfistowannabe]

I would venture to say a WW3 is bigger than any one President. That doesn’t happen in 4-8 years. That brews.

You’re right. W has blood of hundreds of thousand of people on his hands. But was he waving WW3? No definitely not. He was picking on a target that came with no consequences amongst other powerful nations. I’d argue W made no motion towards a WW3...

Fair enough.

Trump, on the other hand, has aggressively targeted China politically and economically

True, and not a good trend. I think it can and will be reversed once he's gone.

and been simultaneously erratic on North Korea.

I don't know that erratic is the right word. Certainly unpredictable. I think that much is intentional on his part. Where he may be bad on China, I'm actually a bit more optimistic about North Korea as some good has come out of it.

...

There are no internment camps because this isn’t 1945 and we aren’t at war with Japan or any other superpower and there is no level of paranoia and societal racism to that level exacerbated by a war.

True enough.

 

[Macfistowannabe]

Yeaaaaaa if it's trendy then consider myself an early adaptor. I've thought he was a piece of shit for years.

Hah, maybe so.

I had in mind that you hear the same thing whether Trump, Obama, Bush, or Clinton is in office.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Hah, maybe so.

I had in mind that you hear the same thing whether Trump, Obama, Bush, or Clinton is in office.

Yeaaaaaa this isn't the same.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

Or starting internment camps.

I dunno, the current situation going on at the border with children being put in cages and being ripped from their families seems to be in the same vein as that to me.

Yeaaaaaa if it's trendy then consider myself an early adaptor. I've thought he was a piece of shit for years.

Same. There's a reason why, every time he teased in the past that he wanted to run for president, my immediate reaction was, "Oh, god, please no."