Dark and Sad Day In America

[Kittens Are Awesome]

You know what, if you guys don't want any of this to happen, and you don't want it to further go down the hole, vote for the "other guy." Anybody but the front runners to the Rep and Dem party will not be bought by big, greedy business. That's who really runs this country when you guys vote for either of the big 2. I'm voting Independent this time around. Screw the Left and the Right. They have been bought and sold so much, they are no better than street walking whores.

PS - Most Americans don't give a shit what other countries do. We don't like being forced to pay for something that can be provided on our own. Health care is one of those things. Don't mind paying taxes for roads and infrastructure, just not health care.

[furbeach]

TLDR; Healthcare rules.

[Sir_Bee]

There is too much happening in this post, that you cannot have a real discussion about it. A topic is brought up, and then before anything comes of it, somebody says something different and you move on. I would like to ask a few questions and get an explanation, then I can further understand why there is this argument.

First and foremost. What is Socialism, and why does everyone hate it so much. From what I understand, isn't Socialism the act of getting everyone to help pay for something to better the community. If that is the case, then what about the fact that you have public schools? They are paid for by your taxes. What about policemen, and firemen, they are paid for by your taxes. You have roads, maintained and paid for by your taxes. I get the impression that people expect these things, and yet they are simple representations of Socialism? Imagine living in a world where your mother was murdered, but before the police will look into it, you need to pay for the investigation. Your house catches fire by some freak accident, the firemen put out the fire, but then you get stuck with the bill. That is what would happen if you were to truly privatize everything. It would take the poor for everything they have, and it would make the rich, richer. Now I may be naive, but I don't think that is what people really want. So I as again, why is socialism such a terrible thing. Why is having a public hospital, that is around to help anyone who needs it, a bad thing?

This brings me to my next question. Everyone hates paying taxes, and yet you still expect all of those services that are provided by government. Where do you think that money comes from?

[LeeMcD-]

Everybody would be happy if everybody just voted for Ron Paul

[Sir_Bee]

Everybody would be happy if everybody just voted for Ron Paul

I have argued this from the beginning. He was the only no bullshit guy, but he was promoting ideas that no American would ever want to do. "You mean we actually have to give things up to get out of this massive debt we are in? no way, I am going to vote for someone who says we can keep going the way we are." It was never going to happen.

[Jarred_450]

[acasser]

If you don't like lengthy soapbox-style rants, I'd advise you to skip to the next response.

The slaves (my ancestors) built the foundation of this country. Sorry dude. You need to get that right.

African slaves did help build this country. So did a hell of a lot of other people whose work you seem to want to convienently overlook while you play the victim card. Let's not start the "Woe is me, my great, great, ...., great grandparents were imposed upon and therefore I'm entitled to special dispensation" argument.... because I can think of an awful lot of people who are alive today and went through things far worse than involuntary bondage and slave labor, people whose tribulations would blow your ancestors out of the water (let alone someone with a sense of entitlement because of something that happened centuries ago).

Let's get something straight: Nobody alive today has been legally owned as a slave in the United States. There is nobody alive today whose parents have been legally owned as a slave in the United States. There might be some people old enough whose grandparents were legally owned as a slave in the United States, but I suspect that number is less than 0.01% of the population if it's even greater than zero. There is nobody alive today who legally owned a slave in the United States, nobody alive today whose parents owned a slave in the United States, and probably very few people whose grandparents legally owned a slave in the United States.

In the days when this country was built, the United States was a melting pot. People were Americans first, and whatever minority group they wish to claim residence in (and victimhood for) second. That's no longer the case -- every little group has their own parades and their own week/month of recognition and all that rot, except for a handful of groups that it's politically correct to attack (Caucasians, men, most sects of Christianity). I, for one, am sick and tired of seeing all these groups clamor for special treatment and recognition. I think it's going to lead to the Balkanization of this country in a matter of years, quite possibly less than a generation from now -- this country will splinter along racial and ethnic lines the way Yugoslavia did 20 years ago.

....

Do you know what happens when we all dwell upon what our parents and their parents and THEIR parents did? We get an aristocracy and a monarchy like they play at in the Old World. We get the Clintons and the Kennedys, the Bushes and the Romneys. We get Donald Payne, Jr. winning his late father's Congressional seat on name value against several other better-qualified and more-knowledgeable candidates. We get people buying power and influence with money their pappy and grandpappy made. We get nepotism and cronyism and all sorts of other garbage this world would be better without.

Fox News is indeed the largest audience. I know that too, but sources also show that Fox viewers are the least informed... What does that tell you?

"Sources say" is journalism-speak for "This is what I (the reporter) feel, but I don't have anyone who will actually put their name to it.... so I'll simply use 'unnamed sources' as a way of putting my bias into the article as 'fact'". It's bullcrap.

http://www.huffingto..._n_1538914.html

http://www.inquisitr...no-news-at-all/

http://www.telegraph...tudy-finds.html

Lrn2google.

What a shock, studies done by people with a liberal bias have results that say liberals are better. Have you ever dug into the methodology behind most of those studies and polls, or those done by similar outlets (NY Times, Washington Post, NBC)? More often than not, you have samples that aren't remotely reflective of reality, because they over-sample people who agree with the point they're trying to make and under-sample people who don't. Many conservative media outlets do the same thing in the other direction, only they don't get as much play on television/radio/newspapers because they're a minority compared to the liberals who dominate many of those areas.

Give me an unbiased source, and I'll consider putting more credibility into your sites.

First and foremost. What is Socialism, and why does everyone hate it so much. From what I understand, isn't Socialism the act of getting everyone to help pay for something to better the community. If that is the case, then what about the fact that you have public schools? They are paid for by your taxes. What about policemen, and firemen, they are paid for by your taxes. You have roads, maintained and paid for by your taxes. I get the impression that people expect these things, and yet they are simple representations of Socialism? Imagine living in a world where your mother was murdered, but before the police will look into it, you need to pay for the investigation. Your house catches fire by some freak accident, the firemen put out the fire, but then you get stuck with the bill. That is what would happen if you were to truly privatize everything. It would take the poor for everything they have, and it would make the rich, richer. Now I may be naive, but I don't think that is what people really want. So I as again, why is socialism such a terrible thing. Why is having a public hospital, that is around to help anyone who needs it, a bad thing?

Socialism is the practice of having the economy and many other things centrally managed by the government, as opposed to a "free market" having dominance. Many industries are nationalized -- i.e. the government owns and runs them without any comeptition from the private sector -- and the government dictates many of the sectors of the economy they don't directly control. It seems to work well as an theory propogated by ivory tower intellectuals, but it doesn't work well in practice.... perhaps because the people who run the government corrupt the process to enrich themselves and their cronies.

There's a place for government to do certain things. There's a place for certain collective responsibilities. However, since we are not a society of angels and we are not a society of angels ruling over men, there need to be strict limits on the government and what it does.... otherwise you get what we're heading towards today, and that's a tyranny of a small governmental oligarchy over the common masses little better than Absolute Monarchies practiced centuries ago. There's a role for the government to provide policing responsibilities. There's a role for the government to provide a hand up (but not a hand out) to those who have fallen on hard times. But I don't see a reasonable place for the government to repeatedly pick my pocket to pay for someone else's benefits because they cannot (or often will not) do it themselves.

The government should not be dictating my health options. The government should not be dictating to me what I must buy. The government shouldn't even be dictating too much in the way of what I cannot do (hello Nanny Mike and your proposed soda ban!).

This brings me to my next question. Everyone hates paying taxes, and yet you still expect all of those services that are provided by government. Where do you think that money comes from?

I don't object to paying taxes for certain, reasonable things. I don't see Obamacare as one of those.

As for where the money comes from.... increasingly it comes from a shrinking minority of people whose hard work is being stolen by the government -- there are many jurisdictions (especially here in the greater NYC area) where the sum total of income taxes, payroll taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, gas taxes, "user fees", and so on approaches 65% of one's income. That's getting to be way, WAY too much.... especially when there's a growing number of people who aren't paying anything but are sucking greedily at the government money tit.

Europe is several decades ahead of us on this road, and they haven't had to pay for an immense worldwide military presence during that time, nor do they have such a massive "foreign aid" budget to support. Considering the state of the European Union -- bank runs in Greece, 25% unemployment in several nations, hyperinflation soon to come in Italy and Spain and Ireland -- can the United States really afford to follow the same road?

[xBiG_BoSS-911x]

Everybody would be happy if everybody just voted for Ron Paul

Edited June 29, 2012 by xBiG_BoSS-911x