How do you justify this lunacy?

#127
#127
OWB said:
Sorry, but you're not going to turn this into a "same thing" debate. The point is, you can't whine about the government interfering in certain things and not others. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Click to expand...

I guess I'm just not sacrificing enough. That's fine; leave government out of everything? You bet... if that's your motto, who you going to vote for? It can't be Obama.
 
#128
#128
volsforever27 said:
I guess I'm just not sacrificing enough. That's fine; leave government out of everything? You bet... if that's your motto, who you going to vote for? It can't be Obama.
Click to expand...
Nice try, but in the future, try to keep up skippy.
 
#131
#131
OWB said:
Mhmm, but when it comes to a woman's right to choose, you're all about the government stepping in.
Click to expand...

You really don't want to open this can of worms.

I am all for a woman's right to choose. She can choose not to get pregnant. Once she does I am all for not killing what has been created.
 
#132
#132
allvol123 said:
You really don't want to open this can of worms.

I am all for a woman's right to choose. She can choose not to get pregnant. Once she does I am all for not killing what has been created.
Click to expand...

i.e. requiring she carry the pregnancy to full term.

Under any circumstance?
 
#133
#133
TennNC said:
i.e. requiring she carry the pregnancy to full term.

Under any circumstance?
Click to expand...
why do republicans let the NOW crowd quasi-hijack elections with this issue. It's just irrelevant to the vast majority of the population. Just let the women have their option up to a point and in special circumstances. Do not let this liberal red herring be a real issue to the campaign.
 
#135
#135
TennNC said:
By this definition, aren't all taxes an instrument of Socialism?
Click to expand...

You just don't get it. The purpose of govt is to engage the power of the state to do what each individual has the inherent right to do, namely protect his/her right to defend his/her life, liberty and property. To the extent taxes are necessary to enable the govt to do this, taxes are okay, because all are protected equally. Going beyond this is always Socialism and wrong.
 
#136
#136
emainvol said:
Is it not my right to be a socialist if I damn well please?

Just curious as to what this argument is about.

For the record, I support Obama because I agree with him on almost everything. Why do I agree with it? Because I think it can work, if it doesn't, oh well, I was wrong. It happens. I don't have to justify myself.
Click to expand...

Just curious emain, what do you agree with Obama on? From what I can tell he has delivered very little information on what his intentions are for this country.
 
#137
#137
TennNC said:
By this definition, aren't all taxes an instrument of Socialism?
Click to expand...

If taxes were used the way they were originally intended by the framers it wouldn't be but the way some of our tax dollars are spent today, yes it would have to be an instrument of Socialism.
 
#138
#138
joevol320 said:
the way the government taxes cigs, it seem they would encourage us to smoke. imagine if everyone on the state just stopped smoking and buying cigs. what would happen? the states would go broke would our taxes.
Click to expand...

That is what happened with the cigarette tax here in Tenn. The added revenue was suppose to help fund schools but a year later when they added it all up there was a shortfall in the revenue from the cigarette tax, what happened, people decided cigarettes were too expensive and quit or got them in Kentucky. Another example of our government spending before they have it and coming up short.
 
#140
#140
McLovin said:
Here are 64 pages
http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/ObamaBlueprintForChange.pdf

and another 48 pages
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/Obama_Keeping_Americas_Promise.pdf

My apologies if you've already looked at this.
Click to expand...

I read over it pretty quickly and no doubt missed a lot but a common theme I saw was a pledge to do this or that and no info given as to how this would be done. I know this is common among candidates but for someone as inexperienced as Obama it worries me. Especially considering some of the very people he considers "predatory" are the kind of people he has surrounded himself with in his campaign.
 
#141
#141
jamesd1628 said:
You just don't get it. The purpose of govt is to engage the power of the state to do what each individual has the inherent right to do, namely protect his/her right to defend his/her life, liberty and property. To the extent taxes are necessary to enable the govt to do this, taxes are okay, because all are protected equally. Going beyond this is always Socialism and wrong.
Click to expand...

What equates to "going beyond this"? Where is the line drawn? Bridges, roads, tunnels - those aren't necessary to defend life, liberty and property, are they? Libraries? Museums?
 
#142
#142
TennNC said:
What equates to "going beyond this"? Where is the line drawn? Bridges, roads, tunnels - those aren't necessary to defend life, liberty and property, are they? Libraries? Museums?
Click to expand...
what if we draw the line at any funds paid out (unless purely unused refund) to be used at individual discretion for solely individual or single family purposes.
 
#145
#145
I don't think its accurate to label Obama a socialist anymore than it is correct to describe McCain as a warmonger. Granted, Obama believes in a larger role of government in our economic lives than would McCain and McCain is more apt to resort to force in foreign policy than is Obama. But for one thing its all relative. And for another you are giving the office way too much credit for having the power to either go to war willy nilly or move to a government single payor system in health care.

I'm not saying these aren't legitimae ways to distinguish candidates and one can choose a general direction in exercising their vote. But don't think for one minute that a vote for Obama means socialized medicine or that a vote for McCain means WW III.
 
#146
#146
lawgator1 said:
I don't think its accurate to label Obama a socialist anymore than it is correct to describe McCain as a warmonger. Granted, Obama believes in a larger role of government in our economic lives than would McCain and McCain is more apt to resort to force in foreign policy than is Obama. But for one thing its all relative. And for another you are giving the office way too much credit for having the power to either go to war willy nilly or move to a government single payor system in health care.

I'm not saying these aren't legitimae ways to distinguish candidates and one can choose a general direction in exercising their vote. But don't think for one minute that a vote for Obama means socialized medicine or that a vote for McCain means WW III.
Click to expand...
with a democratic congress, it is very likely that an Obama vote means federal healthcare of some sort, but that's not my concern. My concern is that it absolutely means a substantial tax increase is coming my way and most of that increase is in the name of wealth redistribusion, which IMO is antithetical to our capitalist system.
 
#147
#147
BigPapaVol said:
with a democratic congress, it is very likely that an Obama vote means federal healthcare of some sort, but that's not my concern. My concern is that it absolutely means a substantial tax increase is coming my way and most of that increase is in the name of wealth redistribusion, which IMO is antithetical to our capitalist system.
Click to expand...


Well, strictly speaking all federal spending except for national defense could probably be characterized in some fashion or another as wealth redistribution. Whether it is taking tax dollards from people in Tennessee to build a hurricane shelter in Florida, or taking tax dollars from wealthier people and using it pay for food stamps for someone a block away, its a matter of taking money out of the system in one place and putting it back in somewhere else.

In principle, we can argue about the social and economic justification of the theoretical concept of taking someone's money and giving it to someone else. We can debate whether that is too simplistic a point of view, we can argue about how people start from different places, we can argue about whether it is short-sighted, etc.

Where I think we are most likely to agree is that that the federal government has become a huge transaction cost. And by that I mean that if you tracked a dollar taken from you to spend on a road near me, by the time the dollar actually got spend on putting some pavement down, its probably down to about 30 cents.

If that.
 
#150
#150
lawgator1 said:
Well, strictly speaking all federal spending except for national defense could probably be characterized in some fashion or another as wealth redistribution. Whether it is taking tax dollards from people in Tennessee to build a hurricane shelter in Florida, or taking tax dollars from wealthier people and using it pay for food stamps for someone a block away, its a matter of taking money out of the system in one place and putting it back in somewhere else.

In principle, we can argue about the social and economic justification of the theoretical concept of taking someone's money and giving it to someone else. We can debate whether that is too simplistic a point of view, we can argue about how people start from different places, we can argue about whether it is short-sighted, etc.

Where I think we are most likely to agree is that that the federal government has become a huge transaction cost. And by that I mean that if you tracked a dollar taken from you to spend on a road near me, by the time the dollar actually got spend on putting some pavement down, its probably down to about 30 cents.

If that.
Click to expand...
the transaction highlighted above is vastly different than everything else. I really don't have a problem with the food stamp program, even though I know it's ineptly administrated by typical socially minded folks and heavily abused. My problem is the vast amount that is otherwise distributed and is discretionary to the recipient, but is equally poorly administrated.

No doubt we agree that the vast gov't infrastructure is out of control. Similarly out of control is the number of people who expect the gov't to fix their individual problems.
 
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.

VN Store



Back
Top