Do they care????

How one feels about how one is perceived depends much on one's perception of those doing the perceiving. Too, distinction must be made of the variance of perception and reality. There are many things about which I care deeply. That which and as you posit would not be among them.



timber

umm, ok.

Just funnin' with ya, Wilso ... hope you know that!



timber

Lacking as I do the ability to understand your first reply, I was unable form an opinion!!!!!!

To assume something like that about a person because of his/her political beliefs or any other belief is pure ignorance. I wouldn't waste my time being offended by someone who is that narrow-minded.

People who assume don't generally go onto web sites and ask a question attempting to reach the truth.

I probably should explain my reasons for asking. In the last 24 hours I have swapped several messages with an Australian conservative senator (Tsebin Tchen). I began the communication in regards to the loss of both jobs and entitlements for 370 Victorian factory workers on Monday. These men held a protest outside the Toorak mansion of one of the companies millionaire directors. It has emerged that these directors continued to operate this company while insolvent, using proceeds from employee entitlements to artificially prop up the company. This is just one of a long string of collapses that have seen a large number of ordinary people suffer. I wanted to know how his government could continue to allow these business practices.
In several communications with this senator he absolutely refused to acknowledge the existence of these people and their families facing a very bleak Christmas. He further stated "Some of these people are no longer in business because they have lost most of their money, a lot of them, but not all, during the marvellous years of Keating and Hawke, but I don't know of anyone suffering any adverse consequences from their business failures, except themselves. So apparently according to this gentleman, employees don't suffer when companies go broke.
So I'm going to ask the question again. Do conservatives give a damn about anyone but themselves?

Wilso



The problem with the theme to which you alluded, is that the political pundits are painting with too broad a brush. There is a name for endowing an entire group of people with a particular moral quality, especially a negative one. That name is PREJUDICE!

Do conservatives give a damn about anyone but themselves?


I am also fond of my family, thanks for asking!!

Conservatives not caring about people is as much of a(n) (inaccurate) generalization as saying every liberal is a simpering, whimpering dolt that screams for aid to everyone that gets a papercut.

I've never heard of this Senator you mention before but it appears his words are directed at the business owners - not every rank and file employee. If you read "I don't know of anyone suffering any adverse consequences from their business failures, except themselves" as "I don't know of any business owner suffering any adverse consequences from their own business failures, except themselves." the context of the statement changes significantly.

Can you provide a link to the complete text you drew this comment of his from?

Fishin', I understood his statement exactly as you did. ie, business owners suffer from their OWN business failures. It is this gentlemans refusal to acknowledge others that are affected which is irksome. As I said, 370 workers are without jobs 2 weeks before Xmas, while the directors are living in gated mansions, and nobody wants to acknowledge their suffering.
It should also be noted that of the 25 conservative senators I emailed about this issue, he was the only one who could bother to even reply.

A conservative think tank on poverty recently criticized an $18 a week pay rise given to low income earners stating that low income earners were "no better off" because of the rise. Maybe they should have taken money off them.

Toorak is a high value suburb of in Victoria. In my first message to this gentleman I spelled the name "Turak" as I a didn't know the correct spelling and was unlikely to ever visit or hear of the place unless on the evening news.
When I corrected the spelling in the following message
"So how many millionaires do you know in Toorak? And do you intend to try to defend policies which allow business people to take the entitlements of workers to cover their own incompetence? Or are you just too well off on our money to care?"
his reply was "So it is TOOrak, is it? Sorry, still don't know anyone there. Now, what was the point you were wanting to make?"
This from a highly paid representative of the people.

If you're incorporated, business owners unlikely suffer any loss other than their job. I have a feeling nearly all of them know what's coming and have covered their bases (a euphemism for ass). Offshore banks I'm sure are gluted with money right now. No, I don't believe all conservatives are sociopaths with money any more than all liberals give their money away to help unfortunates until they no longer can afford to. I don't believe conservativism and liberalism can be defined at this point in history and have always looked at politicians more as progressive or regressive. Trent Lott, for instance, looks more regressive to me now. I think most Americans want everyone to be employed and making a decent living on the bottom end of the scale. The current administration has a study in progress on what the political ramifications will be if they raise the taxes on lower income earners. Most of these taxpayers will find themselves in the minimum tax category and paying more taxes anyway. This looks like another car on the train wreck but when it'll run into the wall is anybody's guess.

Wilso, I am a moderate leaning to the conservative part of political spectrum. And I am concerned when the neighbor is starving only if this is not this neighbor's fault, if he/she is a victim of circumstances (for example, physical and/or mental disability). But if this neighbor merely does not want to work and wants to live on expense of social security all his/her life, I have no pity for him/her; more, I would like to cut his/her social security benefits and to make him/her work and to pay taxes, just as I do myself.

All of my neighbors work and I'm unable to judge those who are victims of circumstances outside of my reach. I disagree with summarily cutting off all safety nets and, like the rest of us, I have to rely on a bureaucracy to decide who deserves help and who doesn't. Oversight and changing the laws to protect employees and investors is obviously in order and anyone against them should elicit extreme suspicion of their motives.

Lightwizard, I did not mean destroying the protective net that defends all of us when we lose job or get disabled(the government of my country does, and this makes me seriously dissatisfied with its social policies). I mean deteriorating conditions of receiving benefits for people that milk social security for years and decades without undertaking even a single attempt to find a job.

The only way to "milk" social security is to do it illegally. No, I don't feel empathy for anyone who falsifies their disability or work status to continually remain on a government program. I feel empathy to the degree that they should be given the opportunity to rehabilitate if they are in a frame of mind of hopelessness. It's a problem the government has to be involved in one way or another and I don't feel robbed of any of the small percentage of tax dollars that go for helping those who are down and out. I'm not in the position to be able to make those individual judgements -- they are out of my reach. On the other side of the board is those who's corporate leaders take advantage of them, literally robbing their own employees and/or stockholders. Anyone who sets up the program to deceive and benefit from those who don't have the knowledge or power that they have at hand does not have my empathy and that negative response is far more deserved.

Not sure of the idea of protecting investors, LW. Eliminate the risk and we will eliminate the need for the most basic analysis. By protecting the first $100,000 of bank deposits, we have already misdirected investment (certificates of deposit, etc.) to the shakiest banks in the country.

Of course, there's always risk in any investment market. We did go through the debacle of the savings and loans juggling their books and didn't seem to learn a thing. What they are doing to tighten up on accounting procedures (a euphemism for honesty) looks like too little too late to me. I would not advocate guaranteeing an investment by the government or anyone else. Misrepresenting the product is another thing. Products are waranteed against defects but basic flaws that are in the design don't come into play until a recall of the product. In the case of the corporate leaders and their colluding accountants, it's not a recall but jail time without the option of going to country club prisonsand fines that will get their attention.