All reasonable people should be focused on evidence and science. Believing anything without evidence is no better than believing lies and falsehoods. Not good for freedom or democracy.
I have already responded to this in another topic:
You have a distorted view of “traditional values”. You have a distorted view of what makes America great.
What is socialism, really? It’s taking care of those who cannot take care of themselves. Isn’t that one of the main things the Bible teaches? How do you square your belief in the Almighty without embracing this very basic tenet of all the most widely spread religions?
I meant to say that name-calling makes it difficult to restore normalcy in a discussion. Given that context, what you wrote does not make sense to me. Do you live in a place where people call each other names before peacefully settling their disputes? Does anyone know of such places?
Since America was founded, there have been so many changes to the Constitution and laws, that you could say this about anyone who has ever wanted or been involved in those changes. So, everyone.
I’m gonna preserve this quote, just in case the evidence in November supports my version of “normal or desired” and not yours. Even though that’s not what I was talking about when I used the word “normal”.
Colin Powell, quite simply, is NOT a Republican. Colin Powell has not voted for a Republican for POTUS since 2004. In every election since he has supported the Democrat candidate.
I am sick and tired of the mainstream media propaganda arm of the DNC constantly proclaiming Powell a Republican in order to further their political goals.
Colin Powell is a Democrat. Period. He is either too cowardly to own that appellation, or else he calculates he can do more damage to Republicans by continuing his charade. Guess it’s even possible he is too embarrassed to admit the truth. Goodness knows, these days especially, Democrats have plenty of reasons to be embarrassed!
Polls have no substantive value except for their propaganda value. The poll results are heavily influenced by how the questions are worded and who was asked. How many polls have been not made public because the results did not match the intentions of the polls sponsor?
Shinobi said: I do not agree that socialism in America has any place or validity. Socialism did not make America great, nor does it underlie traditional American values.
The leper came to Jesus and asked to be healed.
“Are you a Bethlehamite?” asked Jesus.
“No” said the leper.
“Then gtfo” said Jesus.
The blind man approached and asked Jesus to heal him.
“That will cost you 5,000 shekels of silver” said Jesus.
“But I don’t have 5000 shekels” said the blind man.
“Then gtfo”. said Jesus.
Then a group of five thousand men, women, and children approached Jesus, and said they had only five loaves of bread and two fishes between them.
“Lol, hope you like being hungry” said Jesus.
Also socialism:
Roads
Schools
Police
Firefighters
The military
The mail system
Your car (if it was made by a bailed out automaker)
Food (farmers are very heavily subsidized)
All the utilities for your house
1862: Progressive income taxes, i.e. high-income earners subsidize low-income earners.
So some citizens are required to pay more than other citizens? Most citizens pay less or even nothing at all, so of course they will vote for the taxes sponsor. This leads to taxation without representation. Taxes should be at the local level and not at the federal level to help keep representation fairer and weaken the power of the federal government and strengthen the states government independence.
1870: Free elementary education
Has evolved to expensive inefficient propaganda system. If a parent wants to educate their child by other than the state sponsored system they have to pay twice. Once through a government mandated tax and again to the chosen education. Freedom?
1935: Social Security
I forget the exact numbers but 40+ years ago I read that if the person put the same amount into a savings account at just 1% interest through their lifetime instead of Social Security they would end up with 3-8 times the amount they would get from SS. At that time a saving account was paying 5% interest. Once again I had no choice in the matter except pay the government mandated SS tax.
1938: Farm subsidies
This was initially a capitalist based system with aspiring entrepreneurs. Now government has given us great things like ethanol and don’t grow anything this year and the taxpayer will pay you.
1965: Medicare
Another system the politicians have forced upon us. I pay more now on Medicare than I ever did on medical before. We have experienced the tighter and tighter regulation noose to jump thru to qualify for reimbursement of the funds paid for years into the system. Get sick get into the hospital and before Medicare part A will pay. A person has to spend three nights in a Medicare bed. The number of Medicare beds get smaller and smaller. At least that is what we have been told multiple times as our elders fell ill. As we ran around the hospitals administrators offices trying to determine if our loved one is in a “Medicare” bed. Adding to our grief. Great!
A great day today for us Trump fans. Trump’s daily tracking polling is coming in at 47%, only very slightly below where it needs to be for a Trump victory. Also of great help:
The mainstream media is reporting Trump polling down in the thirties. These, of course, are phony numbers . . . much akin to the numbers prior to the 2016 election which had Hillary winning in a landslide.
It’s a help because we can hope, as happened with her nibs, that the phony Trump poll numbers lull sleepy Joe Biden into gentle slumber; not a tough assignment when you think about it.
Most of all, we have to hope for a VP choice from Biden which works against him and, given circumstances now, it just might happen. To have a chance for victory Biden needs to tack right with his VP. That will be a challenging announcement with the insanity out there now on the left, defund police, disband police, and SO much more.
There is the worry that President Obama HAS to be helping Biden now. Obama is politically smart. He was smart enough to win twice. And he has to know the ridiculous Trump poll numbers are fantasy. I’m just praying Biden makes a mistake regardless.
You can find flaws in any good idea if you look for it. Except farm subsidies, I too agree that they’re bad right now. But as I try to explain below, that wasn’t my point.
That’s demonstrably not true – plenty of people who pay no taxes are Republicans (I’m talking about those who don’t make enough, not just those who exploit loopholes like our president).
shinobi claimed that socialism did not build America. It was not my point to argue whether a law from 158 years ago results in unfair representation, only that socialism has had a huge hand in building America. If you think progressive taxation results in unfair representation, I’d love to hear your thoughts on Citizens United.
It’s true, the FEW who do not desire public education pay twice. But the MANY who cannot afford private or at-home education get it for free. Freedom!
There are at least a couple of problems with this argument. First is that Social Security is not a savings account, it’s a social contract. You don’t invest money into it to get your own money back with interest – you’re paying for current retirees in exchange for FUTURE workers paying you when you retire. And second is that calculation heavily depends on the time period. Economic growth of some specific time period may not be repeatable. The security of retirees can only be guaranteed in perpetuity by a government.
Once again, much like social security, you don’t pay funds into the system. You pay for the benefit of others while you are working in exchange for your benefits being paid by others once you’ve retired. It is not without problems that need fixing, but we (everyone) would only be worse off without it.
We can argue these points back and forth and it would all be off-topic here. My point is that socialist programs have been around for a very long time, and they had and continue to have a huge role in making this country what it is today. I guess whether they’ve made it great or not is in the eye of the beholder, but very, very few people would want to get rid of those programs.
It only sounds insane if you don’t actually look at the details. Disbanding doesn’t mean getting rid of policing entirely, it means getting rid of the current people and hiring new ones with better vetting. It happened before, here’s an example.
More cops can lead to more unnecessary confrontations (as they need to justify their existence and cost). Defunding just means reducing the numbers and the militarization.
And someone who believes in a small / limited government shouldn’t have a problem with a small / limited police force. No? Or do you pick and choose what part of government should be small and what part should be huge based on what suits you?
Some polls are better than others. Better questions and more people polled should provide better results and have more value. Dismissing all polling outright just because some polls are bad does not make sense.
I saw a video of some activists and city council members from Minneapolis yesterday. When asked what to do if you need to call 911 the reply was “call your family and neighbors”. The implication is that they envision having no police whatsoever, not just firing everybody and hiring some other folks instead.
My point is that these arguments are very fluid and, in some cases, borderline a fantasy. Reminds me of utopias: good for idealistic folks but not grounded in reality.
Medicare 4 All would result in a saving over 1000 per year per person according to that paper, which you could then spend on supplemental private insurance if you wanted, like a lot of universal insurance countries have, if you want better than the standard care.
Personally I like an extra grand per person in my pockets to do what I want with.
Lest anyone think thst paper was produced by some libby lib organization, Charles Koch sits on their board of directors and two other members of the board are C level execs from Koch Industries, and the study was done by a Bush admin official.
Just because some people claim to want that does not make it a mainstream liberal idea. Though if you lived in a neighborhood that is either not visited by police or where many police encounters result in undue violence, you’d also want to get rid of police entirely.
