Texas is still at it

Oh please, pull the other one it’s got bells on it.

You’re not stupid so you know debate is only possible if there are differences of opinion, hell that’s fundamental and obvious, even my five year old knows it.

So please don’t give me this shit, I mean you’ve used the same tactic before to try and worm and windle your way out of answer questions, it didn’t work then it’s not working now.

You have presented some ideas I’ve questioned them because they seem like hollow rhetoric without any real thought or substance behind them, your reply would seem to confirm this.

The questions are important because they show the fundamental problem with you ideas and if you can’t answer them your views are worthless, because they are based on the smoke and mirrors of a conman.

 

To explain

Look at the questions asking you to explain you statement that - “It should be obvious that we live in a world where some people are better than others, some richer, some poorer, some more intelligent, some less intelligent, some greedy, some envious. We are not equals.”

Who judges who is ‘better’?

Why are some ‘rich’ and others ‘poor’?

How is a persons supposed ‘intelligence’ calculated?

What is your definition of greed and envy in this context?

How is ‘equality’ judged and by whom?

These are fundamental questions of ideas you hold - if you’ve never asked yourself them and come up with a reply then you’re basically in political terms, clueless.

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For example you emphatically stated that some people are better than others – are you honestly telling us you’ve never asked yourself why you think that, or wondered by what criteria it is decided who is ‘better’?

If not – just how do you know if someone is better than another?

I mean the rating of humans into those that are ‘better’ - superior and those of a more inferior nature has lead to many ills over the years (e.g. slavery and genocide) so to me to not have an answer or even worse to dismiss it as of little importance suggests that your ideas are at best incredibly naive and at worse down right dangerous.

 

I post my opinions, and read others opinions. I see no point in debating something when there's no possibility of reaching any form of agreement. Initially I thought there might be some here who would put aside philosophical and political differences and look to areas where we could agree in some way as a beginning point in which to discuss finding solutions that we could also agree on. Instead, I see that there is little, if anything we could ever reach agreement on, so it looks like it will be a case of who can force who to yield by what ever means necessary.

 

Indie

Again you are not answering any questions just making up excuses why you will not, and I think you’re using such dishonest tactics because you know if you did answer or explain your views it would become very obvious very quickly just how deeply flawed you ideas are.

I mean why should I agree with you – you haven’t put up anything of any substance and you seem unwilling and unable to defend your ideas from criticism.

Are you honestly saying everyone should just accept what you are peddling without question – as you seem to have done?

To me you’re like a political version of a Creationist, yours is a blind belief not a thought through philosophy.

The thing is I don’t care what you want to believe in but I am interested in your ideas and if they stand up to scrutiny and if you or anyone else with similar ideas can actually defend them from criticism, so far they just like you have been very disappointing in that regard, all they and you seem to have is hollow slogans that scatter when examined in any critical way.

Sorry but you’re ideas seem to be a dead end, now please prove wrong, but you can only do that by stopping all this evasion and get down to some open and honest debate.

 

Open and honest debate? Exactly what are we trying to debate? Our beliefs? I have no problem if your beliefs are exactly opposite from mine. The difference is, that your beliefs have intent of being imposed on others while mine do not. I believe in a free market, with minimal government regulations. Prices can be what ever the producer wishes, and I'll take my business to where I find the best prices. Competition is my favorite form of regulation, and if the executives earn millions it doesn't stir anger in me as long as I feel the product cost is acceptable to me. If I have to pay 10% tax on my income I think it's fair that those who make less and those who make more than I also pay 10% tax. After all 10% of a million is much greater than 10% of ten thousand. If an employer wishes to be able to hire workers he should only have to pay what attracts an adequate and capable number of employees. If the wages offered are too low look elsewhere. If you need charity, look for it near your home. That's where you should find persons who know you well enough to make the best decision on what help you deserve. If the money spent on political elections by unions and other groups was put to funding charitable organizations instead, it would greatly reduce the number of non productive public sector workers needed to provide help, and allow a much greater amount to actual provide the needs of the needy.
What we appear to be debating is two entirely different forms of government.

 

Every day when my friend is required to lift as much as 200 lb. with a hernia, he is reminded that your beliefs are imposed on him. Every society imposes a certain system on everyone who lives within it. The very essence of a society is everyone working and playing together within certain guidelines.

The difference here is that you believe in a privileged class and we don't. You believe that you have the right to take more than your fair share of the pie, we don't.

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Your friend should either find other work, or go on disability. My beliefs are not imposed upon him, he has a right to choose to do or refrain from doing what he does. Society should only impose laws that we all agree to be equitable and fair. I'm not allowed to do things which harm others and others are not allowed to do things which harm me. If I wish to sit on my ass and starve to death, that would be my choice, and it is not yours or any others right or responsibility to stop me if I chose such action. Obviously the fact that I have made no such choice irritates you and others like you, but then again I am again exercising my rights. So in a society we all need to play within the rules, but you wish to create rules which extend beyond rationality. I limited my family size to what I felt capable of caring for in a responsible way. If a neighbor were to have ten kids, I should not be tasked by government to care for those kids, but only allowed to provide any aid that I as an individual wished.

It's not that I "believe" in a privileged class, but accept as fact that such will always exist, even in a Communist form of government. I only prefer that becoming privileged is available to everyone and anyone. At the same time I accept as fact that only a small number will succeed and that I likely will not be one of them. Perhaps a son/daughter, grandson/granddaughter, or some future relation will aspire to greater heights in the future.
Get off this "TAKE" and "FAIR SHARE" bullshit. Just earn whatever share you can. Nearly all those who oppose my views imply they possess much greater intelligence than I, so based on that each of you should be much more capable of earning more than I have.
It almost sounds like a conversation that took place in early societies 5,000 or more years ago. The society we trade with has more than us, lets attack them and take all their wealth. Societies in early times traded with one another in basically a free market system, until the point in which one had little the other valued and then trade diminished, at which point war proceeded. How little things really change.

 

Are you being facetious, or what? Are you really that much out of touch with reality? There is no other work, and despite what you might think, disability is not that easy to get; and even if approved, it takes 6 months to a year to get it.

Yes it is. Everybody in his trade and position makes the same pay scale. You have stated that businesses have the right to set the salary that they will pay, fair or not. This is your belief and this is what has been imposed on him.

Right, yes; opportunity, no. This is the only means of support available to him. He has a choice every day, eat in pain, or don't eat and loose his home. This family is but one of millions that are trapped in a classification called the "working poor."

(Just for the record...This person really is a friend of mine and I have not exaggerated his circumstances one bit.)

Come on, it's difficult enough to get a simple majority to agree on anything.

Liberals have fought for this right for decades.

I don't know what you refer to, but your personal choices have no impact on my life, it's not my business and you're free to do whatever you want.

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Then your President is not telling the truth about the jobs being created?

You can blame the same pay on the result of unionism. Businesses have to deal with a number of variables, among which setting the wages they pay which will allow them to hire employees, create a product that can be sold at an attractive price to consumers, and make a profit for themselves and their stockholders. Each variable must be given attention in order to attract not only employees, but consumers and investors or the company will ultimately fail. A free market regulates businesses by allowing workers, consumers, and investors to choose where they will work, the products they will consume, and where to invest their money.
It's not my beliefs that are imposed on your friend, but his evaluation of the choices he can make that he alone decided to make and impose upon himself.

Opportunities are not a right. Have you not advised him to move to Cuba, or Venezuela where his problems would cease to exist?
Seriously, I can empathize with your friends situation, and would perhaps give him some assistance were he a neighbor, but I'm not and if you look at the worlds population as a whole, just where would you begin providing aid?

That's true, and that's why we have so much disagreement when a slightly larger number feel they have a right to impose their desires on another number who are just slightly smaller in number.

In what form? Abortion?

Haven't you claimed that with the limited resources available, what I "take" reduces what you and others have available to them?

 

I have no doubt that jobs are being created. We lost so many it will take a while until everyone is back to work.

This is where you have absolutely no idea of what it's like being poor in America. There are no choices. He didn't choose the job he has, it was the only one he could find. He presently has only 2 choices, keep the job he has, or loose his home and ability to support his family.

Your entire theory here is dependent on choices that are not a reality for lower income wage earners.

Within my own country.

To use your own rhetoric, no one is forced to do anything, they can choose to live in another country, you did.

I was speaking of end of life decisions and the right to refuse treatment.

One person alone does not disturb "The Force." It's when entire groups of people believe they are "privileged" that the social fabric unravels.

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Indie

You definitely remind me of Creationists I’ve meet, they don’t have any rational arguments with which to defend their ideas so they just pump out dogmatic slogans or religious texts.

You’re again not answering the criticisms levelled at your ideas you are just making excuses why you will not.

As to –

- That just comes across as paranoid delusion.

And then once again you pump out the dogma.

But the think is that the things you are promoting would all give great power to a minority and further disadvantage the majority.

We come back again to the question - what is a society for?

Is it for the benefit of the few or the many?

This has been one of the fundamental questions of political thought throughout history.

To me your ideas would negate democracy and set up in its place a plutocracy, an oligarchy, a tyranny, in other words they are not progress and instead a step backwards in political thinking.

 

Recently I think the news claimed that about 436,000 new jobs were created. Good news? I also heard that about 411,000 of those jobs were government temporary jobs for census takers. What is the current administration doing that you feel motivates private sector job creation? Or do you feel that public sector job creation is a viable solution?

You're again making baseless assumptions. There often many choices we have available that we choose to ignore for personal reasons. To claim that only two choices are available tends to make me think that a choice has been made to confine ones choices. Perhaps moving would be a solution that would avail a greater range of choices, but by eliminating that one has reduced their overall number of choices greatly.

Often it is the individual who makes a choice become a reality. Seldom does opportunity come looking, it is more often found by the persons who set out to find it.

YOUR country? What about you own state? Your own city? or even your own neighborhood?

Sounds like it's either your way or get out of the country? And didn't you just finish implying in another post that the food industry forces you to buy food?

Who's right should prevail? The individuals or the governments right to refuse treatment?

Would you find it satisfactory for just one, or perhaps a small number of persons to believe they are privileged? And just what are the privileges we are talking about? Is there a defined American social fabric which encompasses all inhabitants? I hardly think so, and it would look more like a piecework quilt with a totally random pattern as the population is more diverse than any other country in the world. A relevant question might be would it be more beneficial or more detrimental to society for government to impose a more rigid concept of a social fabric that all inhabitants would have to accept?

 

Societies exist primarily because of the protection they provide the inhabitants, as well as the concentration of goods and services they avail the members.

It, society?, is for the benefit of those who benefit the society.

This what?

I firmly oppose Democracy, as a form of Federal government. Democracy exercised at the State level can be devastating enough. I firmly believe in a Constitutional Republic, comprised of individual and sovereign states. Sovereignty begins with the individual, not the Federal government. If one state wishes to spend itself into bankruptcy, all states should not be forced to bail it out.

There, I've answered your questions.

 

The people who have these "govt." jobs don't seem to have a problem with "public sector job creation."

Do you want government in the business community or not? First you want government out of business regulation, now you want it to interfere somehow and manipulate business to create jobs. You sound like the people on the Gulf Coast: "drill baby drill," "government stay out of our lives," "States Rights;" until a disaster comes ashore; then it's "why hasn't government solved this problem for us?"

First, they have no money with which to move. Then, why in the hell should someone have to move away from their family and friends and give up their home. And, moving to a place where there are still no jobs available is absolutely ridiculous. Your whole argument is ridiculous.

Opportunities cannot be found if they do not exist.

I'm proud to be an American, sorry if conservatives aren't.

Your rhetoric got ridiculous a while back. I said, nor implied no such thing.

I guess you missed the whole "right to die with dignity" movement. No sense in discussing this if you don't know what it's about.

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Of course they don't, but as they are not producing a product or service from which a profit is derived, they have to be funded by the taxes on private sector workers who do produce something for a profit.

I think I made it clear that I would like government out of business regulation, whereby businesses could create jobs without government mandates which must be taken into account as a factor in any decision to increase their workforce size.

Then it boils down to a case of having to lie in the bed of your own making. I'm unaware of the abilities of the individual you are talking about, but at the same time have had nothing to do with creating the situation he faces.

That's when it helps to be creative. What's the old saying? "Wait (weight) is what broke the wagon down."

Then why so dissatisfied with it?

From the thread "Effort or Luck"

Quote:

Perhaps you'd explain that more clearly for me?

Although that isn't what you said in the post I responded to, I still must ask if the decision is one in which the government should or could have a say, or only the individual alone. It would appear that some in the administration, including Obama, feel that by government taking on the responsibility of provider that a government bureaucracy should have the right to have a say in the final decision.

 

Indie

If protection is the only or primary benefit of a society then as long as people are protected then it could be said that everyone in that society benefits.

But what is meant by ‘protection’? Protection from what?

Protection from harm, protection from exploitation, protection from hardship, protection in sickness – its a vague term that is open to interpretation.

I mean if someone is born into power and wealth which gives them protection from exploitation and hardship and another is born into poverty which opens them to exploitation and hardship, then there is in that society an inequality of protection.

The society is benefiting one over the other and if the ones getting the greater benefit are few compared to the others then that society is benefiting the few and not the many?

Again you need to think things through a bit more rather than resorting instantly to slogans, because they aren’t real replies and so don’t stand up well to scrutiny.

You’re stating - society should only benefit those who benefit the society.

But who decides which person is of benefit to a society and who isn’t and to what degree, and what criterion is to be used?

I mean depending on what criteria you chose your reply could mean many or just a very elite few, in other word it fails dismally to answer the question.

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Again as you can see your ideas don’t seem that thought through, they’re just too simplistic.

 

The thing about a ‘Constitutional Republic’ is that only 1% or less can have the vote and it would still remain a ‘Constitutional Republic’ I mean at the beginning of the USA only some 10% of people had the vote.

This is why many of those people that would prefer rule by an elite, an oligarchy, say they are in favour of a Constitutional Republic over democracy.

In a democracy the interested of the many should be championed by the government as a counter weight to the power and influence of wealthy individuals and concerns that would try and manipulated society in their own self interest.

To me the problem today is that since the Second World War such individuals and concerns have been allowed to do just that.

As pointed out in a previous thread – Conspiracy or lobbying? http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=314393&f=36

Many peoples views have been shaped and influenced some like Indie are so ‘well educated’ as to seemingly believe that any community action is some type of ‘collectivist’ conspiracy to enslave and oppress. And the views are so entrenched that many (like Indie) don’t seem to question them or wonder why they don’t actually stand up very well to scrutiny.

In my view what is needed is a rebalancing of power.

 

The greedy fucking bankers crashed the economy and millions of people are out of work and/or making less. For you to suggest it is their fault is a lame argument. The fact is the wealthy control this country just like Hitler controlled Germany.

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Just too little regulation I suppose? Perhaps it might be worth questioning the regulations that were in place, Fannie and Freddie, and the ignored warnings that Greenspan and others gave which were ignored, by even Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. The involvement of Political Action groups in demanding what banks should do, and the loans that bankers likely would never had made without political pressure. Do you see any laws that were broken? Poor banking practices, obviously, but how and why?
But even more important, have you seen any changes come about that eliminate or even reduce a possible future recurrence?
Who do you feel controls government? The wealthy when Republicans are in control and the poor when Democrats are in control?

 

Companionship.

Companionship makes no such distinctions. Companionship benefits every one who is a companion.

Politic is possessing or displaying shrewdness, tact, or cunning.