The crime of being poor in America.

I don't know about the finer points Thomas I just think that any society that chooses to leave people behind is disgusting.

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Thomas, that is laughably absurd. Were dictionaries and thesauri accurate, politician and hypocrite would be listed as synonyms. You really have no point when you describe politicians as indulging in hypocricy.

However, you here choose to slander an entire class of people ("the left") by referring to the actions or lack thereof of Democrats. Apart from the absurdity of your contention that Democrats wanted higher tarrifs (the absurdity lies not in being incorrect, but in once again, for the convenience of a feeble argument, treating them as a monolith of opinion--do you contend that no Democrats dissented from such a position?), you are attempting to support your slander of an entire class of people by reference to the Democrats. Anyone in America who truly is on the left knows that the Democrats are not on the left, they are simply not as far to the right as the Republicans.

I won't even give you a nice try on that one, Thomas, that is extremely faulty reasoning, as well as being a blanket slander.

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Thomas
Hypocritical to respond to the need social for programs . How so? Should the priority be tax cuts for the rich or help for those in need?

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I have mentioned this on other forums. The Feds are about to cut medicaid. The state of NC is posed to follow up by eliminating it for the poor and disabled in the state budget as well.

My sons medicine is over 1000.00 a month without Medicaid. He is aged off my insurance BY LAW!!!! He can get "State Mandated" insurance, but unfortunately the state doesn't mandate how much more they're allowed to charge for it so it's about as expensive as the medication.

On top of the 1000.00 a month, which btw I'm betting won't go down but up in price as time passes he has a Vagus Nerve Stimulator Implant. He needs surgery every five years or so to replace the batterie. that's thousands of dollars.

Even with all this, he still has a few seizures a month.

Without this medication and this device he would probably have 25 TO 50 SEIZURES A DAY. Grand Mal seizures. No doubt this would kill him in pretty short order.

I'm not poor but I cannot bear the entire cost of this alone, so my boy, who is in the VERY MOST AFFECTED GROUP is S.O.L. if this all comes to pass.

So, should this happen, I would like to invite all you hard cases who support war spending but not Human Services spending down to my house to watch my boy have seizures every 10 minutes or so if you have the stomach for it.

Of course I'm sure the only thing you would take away from the experience would be that He and I are losers

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goodfielder wrote:

I don't know about the finer points Thomas I just think that any society that chooses to leave people behind is disgusting.

Maybe so, but as somebody who has lived both in America and in Germany, I haven't found America to be such a society. Their government is stingier, true. But as a society, my experience so far has been that Americans are as likely as Germans to be kind and generous to people they have no self-interest in -- probably more likely. Europe may have a more generous welfare state, but it also has tougher laws against the immigration of poor people. We may have more generous unemployment benefits, but at the cost at cutting employment in half, and doubling the unemployment rate. On net, I tend to find that a bad deal even for poor people. Hence, I cannot subscribe to the popular opinion that the American system leaves poor people behind and the European welfare state does not.

Setanta wrote:

Thomas, that is laughably absurd.

I'm always happy to amuse you.

Setanta wrote:

However, you here choose to slander an entire class of people ("the left") by referring to the actions or lack thereof of Democrats.

More precisely, "the left side of this debate", or, in my earlier post, "au1929 and the Democrats". Which is a narrower class. My recollection of the relevant history is that the dominant players on the left half of the political spectrum -- DNC, trade unions, Democratic congressmen, you name it -- criticized the Bush tariffs as too feeble when they were imposed, and opposed Mr. Bush when he retracted some of them.

Setanta wrote:

do you contend that no Democrats dissented from such a position

No I don't. Paul Krugman, the guy on my avatar, is a Democrat who generally believes in free trade and opposed the Bush tariffs on that basis. I also remember that his was a very small minority position among his fellow Democrats and liberals back in 2001.

Setanta wrote:

I won't even give you a nice try on that one, Thomas, that is extremely faulty reasoning, as well as being a blanket slander.

Impressive rhetoric. I must remember to copy and paste some of it for my own use someday.

au1929 wrote:

Hypocritical to respond to the need social for programs . How so?

By itself, no hypocrisy at all. Combined with a tax on poor people for eating, clothing, and housing themselves, the hypocrisy seems self-evident to me. Which part would you like me to explain?

au1929 wrote:

Should the priority be tax cuts for the rich or help for those in need?

Right now, help for those in need is definitely the higher priority. I disagree with the author of the article you cited in your first post about what is and what isn't in fact 'help for those in need', but I agree that the Bush tax cuts are a much worse idea.

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Quote:

Hence, I cannot subscribe to the popular opinion that the American system leaves poor people behind and the European welfare state does not.

I didn't say that. I don't give a rat's arse if it's America, Germany,France, Britain or Australia or anywhere else. And I don't much care for the "welfare state" label. Any society that leaves people behind is to be condemned.

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goodfielder wrote:

Any society that leaves people behind is to be condemned.

In that case, would you mind giving me a few examples of societies who leave people behind and societies who don't? That would make it easier for me to understand what you mean.

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goodfielder wrote:

Any society that leaves people behind is to be condemned.

In that case, would you mind giving me a few examples of societies who leave people behind and society who don't? That would make it easier for me to understand what you mean.

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Thomas wrote:

goodfielder wrote:
Any society that leaves people behind is to be condemned.

In that case, would you mind giving me a few examples of societies who leave people behind and a few who don't? That would make it easier for me to understand what you mean.

Don't be disingenous Thomas, it doesn't befit you.

I made a broad statement and it stands by itself, it doesn't warrant specific examples because it is deliberately general. I don't intend to devote the the rest of the thread to a tiresome tit for tat of examples when all it will do is piss everyone off who has to read it to contribute to it. Any society that is worthy of the name "society" will not leave any citizen without the basics for life and life with dignity. Play with that as you will - I'm not interested in games.

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goodfielder wrote:

I'm not interested in games.

Fine with me -- though I don't think of it as a game when I try to find out what my opponent is talking about.

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Thomas wrote:

Setanta wrote:
I won't even give you a nice try on that one, Thomas, that is extremely faulty reasoning, as well as being a blanket slander.

Impressive rhetoric. I must remember to copy and paste some of it for my own use someday.

That was not rhetoric at all, for however clever you find yourself in using such a snide reply. You were not specific about to whom you referred in your remarks until challenged. Your assertions are being accepted here regarding the Democrats and their position on the tarrif, although you offer no more substantial evidence than what you seem to recollect. You fail entirely to answer the reasonable charge that you are willfully conflating Democrats (and now you have hurried to add the DNC and unions [all of them, Thomas, most of them, some of them? evidence, Thomas?], although that certainly wasn't specified in your original condemnation) with "the left," a sufficiently murky term very useful when one wishes to slur and still have an escape hatch.

Are you practicing to suck up to the Republicans when and if you ever live here, Thomas?

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Setanta wrote:

You fail entirely to answer the reasonable charge that you are willfully conflating Democrats (and now you have hurried to add the DNC and unions [all of them, Thomas, most of them, some of them? evidence, Thomas?], although that certainly wasn't specified in your original condemnation) with "the left," a sufficiently murky term very useful when one wishes to slur and still have an escape hatch.

I wasn't aware that this thread is a court trial, that I have to spell out every detail of every opinion I am expressing, and that I have to prove these details beyond any reasonable doubt before posting. I was giving my opinion for what it was worth, and stated whatever foundation I happened to have for it. If you think this particular opinion isn't worth anything, and that my reasons for holding it are unpersuasive -- fine, just remain unpersuaded then. I have no problem with that.

Setanta wrote:

Are you practicing to suck up to the Republicans when and if you ever live here, Thomas?

No, I'm not. It's just that I still remember our last blow-up. That's the one when you first confidently posted erroneous numbers on US defense spending, then didn't acknowledge my correction, then insinuated that libertarians are LaRouchies -- and finally chastized me for not knowing what I'm talking about. Given this memory, I just don't care anymore about your opinion on what an ill-founded opinion is and what slander is. This may well be arrogant and cowardly of me, but the Republicans have nothing to do with it.

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It certainly is convenient for you to characterize the incident in those terms, Thomas, convenient for your huffy dismissal of what i've charged you with.

On the one hand, you assert that you don't know this to be a court in which you are obliged to "spell out every detail of every opinion i am expressing" (despite my having noted that your contentions were conceded without your having done so--something you now find it convenient to forget), but on the other hand, you complain of an incident in which by your own account, you used those tactics on me. Sauce for the goose makes sauce for the gander.

When you wrote:

Quote:

He forgot to mention that if au1929 and the Democrats had their way, America would slap substantial tarriffs on cheap foreign imports of food, textiles, and softwood lumber. Or in other words, they would tax poor people for feeding, clothing, and housing themselves. Somehow this never gets mentioned when Op-Ed columnist cry the Democrats' crocodile tears about the American poor.

. . . you were, of course, simply being the very soul of charm and sweet reason, hmmm, Thomas?

How foolish of me not to have known.

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Setanta wrote:

. . . you were, of course, simply being the very soul of charm and sweet reason, hmmm, Thomas?

No, I wasn't. Still, I stand by the point you were just quoting.

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Point? Well, silly me, i always thought you had a command of the English language.

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Somehow this never gets mentioned when Op-Ed columnist cry the Democrats' crocodile tears about the American poor.

That is not a "point," it is simply a baseless, snide accusation, and a canard for which you don't provide a shred of evidence. It was just pure nastiness, and now you grow churlish when taxed with the charge.

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Whatever.

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Tell me then, Thomas Whatever, the Social Security Administration, Medicare, Medicaid, the Office of Economic Opportunity, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, VISTA, the Federal Unemployment Tax Assessment and the Department of Agriculture's Food Stamp Program, are those just more examples of "crocodile tears" from the Democrats?

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Setanta wrote:

Tell me then, Thomas Whatever, the Social Security Administration, Medicare, Medicaid, the Office of Economic Opportunity, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, VISTA, the Federal Unemployment Tax Assessment and the Department of Agriculture's Food Stamp Program, are those just more examples of "crocodile tears" from the Democrats?

My impression is that the Democrats' general opposition Social Security privatization (barring exceptions like Lieberman) rests on an honest belief that Social Security is a useful program, and that its services cannot be adequately provided by the market. I happen to disagree in principle; but given that privatization depends on getting the details right, and that the Bush administration has a dismal record of getting the details dead wrong every freaking time, I kind of agree with the Democrats' position on privatization for the time being -- similarly for Medicare. I believe in universal health insurance of existential risks. For example, if the Medicaid cuts do indeed mean that blueveinedthrobber can't afford to save his son from frequent epileptic seizures anymore, I am definitely against them.

I have never heard of the Office of Employment opportunity and of VISTA, so don't have an opinion about them. The equal employment opportunity commission is superfluous in my view. Because the discrimination loses an employer money in a free job market, I am pretty certain that the contribution of employers to unequal employment opportunities is greatly overstated. My best guess is that the biggest problem concerning employment discrimination comes from customers and co-workers, and I don't see how "equal opportunity" regulations address these. (Which may well be my fault, since I don't know these regulations in any detail.) The Food Stamp program is a paternalistic piece of crap. I want to see it replaced by a negative income tax, an end to agricultural "price supports" and to restrictions on importing food. There are lots of crocodile tears being shed here. And while the Democrats have historically brought the price "supports" into life, I admit the crocodile tears are mostly bi-partisan nowadays.

So, bottom line: I'm probably on the Democrats' side on most of the programs you mentioned. I am merely frustrated about the bi-partisan, but (so far as I can tell from watching CNN) mostly Democratic demands for more protectionism in general, and the China-bashing in particular. This hurts the American poor those demands claim to protect, and hurts poor people in the rest of the world even more. Hence my perhaps over-hostile phrase about crocodile tears.

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The programs to which i referred were the products of Democratic administraitons, or of Republican administrations dealing with a majority Democrat congress. By referring to the Social Security Administration, for example, i was referring to an institution created by FDR's administration and a Congress controlled by the Democrats--i was not referring to the current shell game the Shrub is playing. As an irnoic historical note, the Republicans acquiesced in the passage of the Social Security Act (1934? 1935?--i'd have to look it up) only after a promise that the trust fund would not be invested in the stock market.

As for the tarriff, i'm always leary that calls for a tarriff are the product of a desire to protect the secret campaign-contribution constituency of the politicians concerned. I am in favor of free trade, although not unregulated trade. There never has been free trade in history of which i've read--and usually that was because of advantages conferred on a group by politicians who were bought and paid for.

As far as identifying the Democrats and the left, i find that rather absurd, although i would understand why someone in Europe less well-informed than you are, might see it in such terms. My ancestors, the Irish, are a very pale-skinned lot. By comparison to the Irish, the Portugese (to pick a people out of the hat) are very much darker. But that would still make the contention that the Portugese are black an absurdity. Same goes for the Democrats--they're not leftist, they're simply not as far to the right as the Republicans.

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Oh, you know, Mr. Bumble, he must be mad," said Mrs. Sowerberry. "No boy in half his senses could venture to speak so to you."

"It's not Madness, ma'am," replied Mr. Bumble, after a few moments of deep meditation. "It's Meat."

"What?" exclaimed Mrs. Sowerberry.

"Meat, ma'am, meat," replied Bumble, with stern emphasis. "You've over-fed him, ma'am. You've raised a artificial soul and spirit in him, ma'am, unbecoming a person of his condition: as the board, Mrs. Sowerberry, who are practical philosophers, will tell you. What have paupers to do with soul or spirit? It's quite enough that we let 'em have live bodies. If you had kept the boy on gruel, ma'am, this would never have happened."

"Dear, dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Sowerberry, piously raising her eyes to the kitchen ceiling: "this comes of being liberal!"

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The crime of being poor in America.

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