The Political Discussion Thread

[mad_gater]

I'm also rather curious as to who these people "who haven't worked a day in their lives" are that you keep talking about. The only Americans I can think of who get any kind of support whatsoever despite never having ever held a job at all are either children in extreme poverty, the severely and congenitally disabled, or elderly women on Social Security who never worked because they are from a generation in which it was not common for women to work outside the home... and the Social Security benefits those women collect stem from their husbands having worked. So now I'm wondering what you have against children, the disabled, and elderly women...

they're using stolen money is why.....SS is the biggest Ponzi scheme in existence....I'm not paying into it for myself...I'm paying into it for the people going into retirement/disability before me...and whoever entered into the workforce after me is paying for my SS

and how typically liberal of you...since you can't find a reason to debate me with fact you resort to demonization

[Ukko]

and we already have such an economic system in America......where everyone is free to pursue wealth on their own merits secure that we are as safe as possible from criminal activity both from within and from other nations and that we have access to due process if we ever should become the victim of a crime

why am I even bothering...many of you arguing with me aren't even American citizens......what the heck to you care how we Americans run things.....I strongly suggest you mind your own stores instead of trying to tell us how to run ours

Because nothing the US does affects anyone outside the US, and the US wouldnt dream of getting involved in others affairs.

Spoiler:

Really am done now. Promise

[SF_and_Coffee]

they're using stolen money is why.....SS is the biggest Ponzi scheme in existence....I'm not paying into it for myself...I'm paying into it for the people going into retirement/disability before me...and whoever entered into the workforce after me is paying for my SS

and how typically liberal of you...since you can't find a reason to debate me with fact you resort to demonization

Oh, that line about SS is the biggest bunch of BS ever invented. SS was never advertised as a retirement savings plan, it's always been understood as the debt owed by the current generation to the one that came before it. That's a hallmark of a civilized society - they take care of their elderly and their children, since one made the present generation possible and the other represents the future. You show me a society that does neither, and I will show you one that is depraved and one step removed from destruction.

And nobody's demonizing you; you seem to be doing a pretty good job if it all by yourself. You don't need our help.

[mad_gater]

haha, weren't you just arguing that a government doesn't have a right to tax you and now you're proposing a consumption tax? And they already have some forms of consumption taxes. And consumption taxes keep the poor in the doghouse because they have considerable less income to spend effecting them more severely by restricting their 'consumption' ability.

I never said it had no right to tax at all....just not to tax beyond the scope of facilitating commerce and providing for public safety and defense and it doesn't have a right to use methods that only serve to punish the successful people who worked hard to get where they are

[SF_and_Coffee]

Question for you, MG: when you retire, do you plan to collect SS? Don't give me that "it won't be around" crap; taking as an assumption that it will be, will you collect it, since you've paid into it? Or will you say, "no thanks"?

[SF_and_Coffee]

I never said it had no right to tax at all....just not to tax beyond the scope of facilitating commerce and providing for public safety and defense and it doesn't have a right to use methods that only serve to punish the successful people who worked hard to get where they are

Read the Constitution. The government actually has quite a lot of scope for taxation, by law, in this country. As for their methods, it doesn't punish anyone. If you've earned more money, you've generally done it by utilizing more of the physical and social infrastructure that taxation pays for, and you therefore have a vested interest in those things continuing to be available. Ergo, you pay your fair share, and if that share is bigger, oh well. That's the way it works. Don't like it? Move to some Third World country where there is very little infrastructure and very little taxation, and take your chances with a real dog-eat-dog way of life. You're free to do that, you know. Nobody is going to stop you.

[mad_gater]

Oh, that line about SS is the biggest bunch of BS ever invented. SS was never advertised as a retirement savings plan, it's always been understood as the debt owed by the current generation to the one that came before it. That's a hallmark of a civilized society - they take care of their elderly and their children, since one made the present generation possible and the other represents the future. You show me a society that does neither, and I will show you one that is depraved and one step removed from destruction.

And nobody's demonizing you; you seem to be doing a pretty good job if it all by yourself. You don't need our help.

yes.....takes care of it on our own terms....not government's......and you just validated the fact that it's a Ponzi scheme...plays into that whole true charity thing again..all we want is the freedom to provide this help on our own terms....the minute the people are shanghaied into providing it it ceases to be civilized.....what we owe to the generation that came before is to safeguard the freedom that allows us to ask for help....not demand it

[SF_and_Coffee]

yes.....takes care of it on our own terms....not government's......and you just validated the fact that it's a Ponzi scheme...plays into that whole true charity thing again..all we want is the freedom to provide this help on our own terms....the minute the people are shanghaied into providing it it ceases to be civilized.....what we owe to the generation that came before is to safeguard the freedom that allows us to ask for help....not demand it

Dude, your biggest mistake here is in thinking of the government as something other than a tool of society. The government isn't an enemy, it isn't a tyrant, it isn't some alien entity against which we are to do battle. It is a tool, it is of, by and for the people themselves. (That term should sound familiar; if it doesn't, read your history.) Government programs were set up by - get this - people voting them into place, or by being enacted by the representatives that people voted into office. WE built this system, OURSELVES, to do precisely the work of a healthy society. A small isolated village of a couple of hundred people may perhaps be able to rely on local charitable impulses alone to take care of its young or its elderly, but a society as large as ours needs a correspondingly larger and more coordinated apparatus to do the same thing.

If you owe somebody something, they shouldn't have to ASK for it. If the present generation owes a debt to the previous one, then why should those elderly have to come begging for that debt to be paid, as you seem to think they should? That isn't freedom, unless you think the only freedom that matters is the "freedom" for able-bodied adults to ignore all needs but their own. We owe the previous generation the means to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies and they should never, NEVER have to come begging for it to the current generation. Likewise, we owe the generation who are currently children those same things along with the education to be successful in their own adulthood, and the children should never have to beg for these things, either. Our society simply uses apparatus set up by our government to collect and distribute the resources that keep our children and elderly from having to ask for what is their due. What on earth is wrong with that?

I mean, seriously, you WANT people to have to beg? Why?

[mad_gater]

face it.....liberation theology is full of more holes than Swiss Cheese......legislating what are private moral matters of individual choice (such as the work of mercy that instructs people of good faith to care for the poor and sick) is the first step towards an authoritarian regime by essentially creating what our Constitution strictly forbids....a state church

basically all this can be boiled down to one simple philosophy.....live your life based on your own merits and on the fruits of your own labor, not on the fruits of other people's labor and if you happen to need a little help along the way just ask (don't demand)

is it so much to ask that we prepare for things like retirement and heaven forbid disability on our own power along with whatever help people provide us out of the goodness of their hearts instead of stealing money from other people to fund it?

[mad_gater]

Dude, your biggest mistake here is in thinking of the government as something other than a tool of society. The government isn't an enemy, it isn't a tyrant, it isn't some alien entity against which we are to do battle. It is a tool, it is of, by and for the people themselves. (That term should sound familiar; if it doesn't, read your history.) Government programs were set up by - get this - people voting them into place, or by being enacted by the representatives that people voted into office. WE built this system, OURSELVES, to do precisely the work of a healthy society. A small isolated village of a couple of hundred people may perhaps be able to rely on local charitable impulses alone to take care of its young or its elderly, but a society as large as ours needs a correspondingly larger and more coordinated apparatus to do the same thing.

If you owe somebody something, they shouldn't have to ASK for it. If the present generation owes a debt to the previous one, then why should those elderly have to come begging for that debt to be paid, as you seem to think they should? That isn't freedom, unless you think the only freedom that matters is the "freedom" for able-bodied adults to ignore all needs but their own. We owe the previous generation the means to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies and they should never, NEVER have to come begging for it to the current generation. Likewise, we owe the generation who are currently children those same things along with the education to be successful in their own adulthood, and the children should never have to beg for these things, either. Our society simply uses apparatus set up by our government to collect and distribute the resources that keep our children and elderly from having to ask for what is their due. What on earth is wrong with that?

I mean, seriously, you WANT people to have to beg? Why?

and government won't be an enemy or tyrant as long as it remains properly limited to its Constitutionally provided for role...and what gives you the authority to say that I owe them a debt.....the only thing I owe anyone is to safeguard a society in which one has the freedom to prepare for all this stuff on their own power....and there's no shame in asking for a little help every now and then provided you're not just living like a sponge

[SF_and_Coffee]

face it.....liberation theology is full of more holes than Swiss Cheese......legislating what are private moral matters of individual choice (such as the work of mercy that instructs people of good faith to care for the poor and sick) is the first step towards an authoritarian regime by essentially creating what our Constitution strictly forbids....a state church

Says the person who would like to legislate a certain private moral choice for women...

Also, I'm not talking about liberation theology. Believe me, if I were to go off in that direction, you'd regret it, because I'd go chapter and verse. But I'm not going to go there. So why are you bringing it up with me?

basically all this can be boiled down to one simple philosophy.....live your life based on your own merits and on the fruits of your own labor, not on the fruits of other people's labor

So at what age should we put babies and children to work?

and if you happen to need a little help along the way just ask (don't demand)

What exactly is the difference between ask and demand here? It's sounding suspiciously to me like a way of saying, "I don't want to feel like I actually owe anything to anyone, but I'll gladly take a warm fuzzy feeling for helping someone if I feel like it and after I've bought all the shiny toys I want." Sorry, but that's just plain selfishness.

is it so much to ask that we prepare for things like retirement

We do. Part of that preparation includes paying into Social Security. It's the law of the land. Don't like it? Then move someplace where they don't have it. Problem solved.

and heaven forbid disability on our own power

Yeah, because if you're born disabled, you have just so many opportunities to prepare for that...

along with whatever help people provide us out of the goodness of their hearts instead of stealing money from other people to fund it?

1. People's hearts are selfish by nature, not good.
2. It isn't stealing when it's been put in place by the people, for the people, as the law of the land. Again, if you don't like it, why not leave? Isn't that what you keep telling the rest of us? Why are you still here?

Oh, by the way: when your own views make you look bad and somebody points that out in public, it isn't demonization. It's calling a spade a spade. I believe that was the phrase you used the other day, wasn't it?

[mad_gater]

Says the person who would like to legislate a certain private moral choice for women...

Also, I'm not talking about liberation theology. Believe me, if I were to go off in that direction, you'd regret it, because I'd go chapter and verse. But I'm not going to go there. So why are you bringing it up with me?


So at what age should we put babies and children to work?


What exactly is the difference between ask and demand here? It's sounding suspiciously to me like a way of saying, "I don't want to feel like I actually owe anything to anyone, but I'll gladly take a warm fuzzy feeling for helping someone if I feel like it and after I've bought all the shiny toys I want." Sorry, but that's just plain selfishness.


We do. Part of that preparation includes paying into Social Security. It's the law of the land. Don't like it? Then move someplace where they don't have it. Problem solved.


Yeah, because if you're born disabled, you have just so many opportunities to prepare for that...


1. People's hearts are selfish by nature, not good.
2. It isn't stealing when it's been put in place by the people, for the people, as the law of the land. Again, if you don't like it, why not leave? Isn't that what you keep telling the rest of us? Why are you still here?

Oh, by the way: when your own views make you look bad and somebody points that out in public, it isn't demonization. It's calling a spade a spade. I believe that was the phrase you used the other day, wasn't it?

"people's hearts are selfish by nature?" care to enlighten me as to the source of this erroneous insight? goodwill is done everyday.....you just don't see it because greed and corruption sells more papers than warm fuzzy stories...Heck it's what Catholic Charities specializes in....in any disaster-struck area non-profits are usually there long before anybody else to help....also care to explain to me then how it is that statistics have shown for the past who knows how many years that the US has provided more humanitarian aid than any other nation in the world?

just because the crime of stealing has the force of law behind it doesn't make it right....racism had the force of law behind it too.....and yet it was still abolished

I'm not doing a thing to make myself look bad....no thanks to your efforts at twisting my words

the fact of the matter is that all government welfare does is enslave the haves to the have nots....my mother doesn't have the right to make me a slave

it's plainly obvious to me that such things as personal accountability are foreign concepts to you....else you would not be seriously advocating that people have the right to use government to pick other people's pockets.....obviously a changeover to a society where family takes care of its own as it sees fit based on whatever values they hold dear is not gonna happen overnight.....I'm not gonna advocate to stop current payments.....but future generations should be taught right now the value of personal accountability

[mad_gater]

and once future generations learn the value of personal accountability...demand for SS would eventually dry up

[SF_and_Coffee]

MG, if you're referring to humanitarian aid given by the US as a national entity, that isn't charity from individual givers. It comes from the very tax money you'd like to stop paying. Guess what? That just proves my point about human nature and selfishness. People who make the biggest noise about not wanting to pay taxes are usually the people who also give the least money to charity. Statistics prove that time and again.

If people really had a truly caring nature about their fellow human beings, they wouldn't complain about their tax dollars going to help those fellow human beings. They would go whining about "it's MY money, and I should get to keep it and decide what to do with it!" People who truly care about others don't care by what method those others get what they need; they only care THAT those others get what they need. A person can't yell "Mine, mine, MINE!" and expect to be seen as anything other than selfish. Anybody who's ever watched a classroom full of kindergarten kids understands that.

Charitable giving in the United States is nowhere near the level it would take to look after the elderly - and I'm sorry, but we DO owe them that, AS a society - nor the disabled. A society can be judged by how well it looks after the least among its members. Healthy societies do this, while unhealthy ones do not.

You've got the internet, you've got libraries, and you've got two eyes and a brain. Do some research, please, and come back and tell us which nations currently have:

1) the most stable economies

2) the longest life expectancies and the lowest infant mortality rates

3) the highest scores educationally

4) the lowest rates of crime and incarceration

5) the highest rating (on a personal self-assessment scale) of overall happiness among their citizens

6) the highest and lowest personal tax rates

7) the highest and lowest business tax rates

8) the highest and lowest amounts of regulation placed on businesses operating in their countries.

I'll throw in #9: of the nations in the top five and bottom five in each of these categories, what kind of government does each have, and what kind of healthcare system does each have?

This information is out there, and it isn't difficult to find. You can start with things like the CIA World Factbook. Hell, you can find a starting point in Wikipedia, if you're willing to follow some links to the sources used by the authors of the Wikipedia entries. Google is your friend. Where you won't find this is on partisan websites or most Catholic-centric websites. Branch out a little bit; I dare you. Don't be afraid to be challenged. It's better to get all the information and really know what you're talking about than it is to just cling to an ideology with no real facts you can cite to back it up. If you want people to agree with you and be convinced that what you say is correct, then get the facts that you can use to back up your argument.

Just be aware that in the quest for facts, you may discover information that contradicts your worldview. Don't be afraid if that happens, either. It is ultimately better to be grounded in even an uncomfortable reality than to just keep saying the same thing over and over again with nothing to back up your opinion but more iterations of your own opinion.

Show us all that you have the guts to actually go and do the research, and report what you find. Please.

[xxxevilgrinxxx]

damn you really are fussy about terminology ! how Nazi of you !

It's hardly being fussy about political terms being thrown around while in a political discussion. A Nazi is a Nazi and a Fascist is a Fascist. If you want to call me a Nazi because I may actually have an idea what I'm talking about, then that's your issue, not mine.

As for the "All Mad Gater, All The Time" show, all I can say is - green to SF&Coffee, and Ukko, who I can't green at the moment. I don't know where either of you get your patience; there's only so much ignorance I can take