My philosophical test

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If you believe in using other peoples's money and taking said money by force to do good things?

If you believe in using your money to do good things?


Just two questions, that, I think divide the ideologies.

Dan
 
I believe in taking people's money. I enjoy watching them willingly hand it over, then when they can no longer get ahead, I enjoy blaming someone else, the man or the system...I enjoy letting them know via their children that hard work is no longer required. I enjoy telling them we will take care of them and the rich people will always have enough money to pay for them...then I enjoy the rich people complaining.....to the point that they no longer donate to charities or help via their churches. Creating more dependency on me, that's what I enjoy,

It's a bit more complex than your two questions, but the cycle is good and I gain enjoyment from it.

Who said the Patriot act is the only assault on our freedoms? I think we gave up a whole bunch 40 years ago....
 
I wouldn't have much of a problem if only good things were being done with the money and none of it was wasted on stupid stuff. However, many bad things are done with it (especially bad things done supposedly in the name of good), and much of it IS wasted.

Of course, one man's bad thing is another man's good thing, and one man's good thing is another man's stupid thing. THAT'S the difference between the ideologies!
 
In the US, you can look at the central issue from a different perspective.

What is the role of the Federal Government?

Is it to fund stem cell research and everybodies pet program that comes along? Or is to secure our freedoms? We lost our way on this one many, many years ago. Once you go down one path, taking money from A to give to B is a direct consequence.

For example, you say you have a "right" to health care. You understand that health care is not "free", so if you can't pay for services, who does? From A to B, it's the only way.

Every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. - John Locke, "The Second Treatise On Civil Government"

Keith.
 
Keith:

There are many here who operate on the mistaken assumption that, under the present "system", those who need health care but cannot afford to pay for it do not get any, and therefore others do not have to pay for it. Not So!!

In reality, absent a formal system to finance health care costs of those who cannot afford to pay, those people do not go for normal preventive, or maintenance health care. Instead, they neglect their conditions until they are so sick that they show up on the door of a hospital and get care, whether they have insurance or not.

Although out of your last 300 posts only 2 have to do with oil and automotive topics, I think you understand that, in the long run, it is cheaper to have your "scheduled maintenance" done than to totally neglect it and show up for a major overhaul when all the systems are at the failure point. Same is true for the human body.

Now, when these people do show up for their "major overhaul" that they can't afford to pay for, the hospital does not eat the cost. Rather, it is built into the overall cost structure and reflected in the rates they charge their paying customers. This drives up the cost of health insurance for those who can pay, often to the point where it makes it so unaffordable that those who can afford to pay a premium that reflects health care only for themselves cannot afford health insurance that is burdened with the cost of "uncompensated care" provided to the less affluent.

The result is an irrational method of financing health care costs of the indigent via a hidden tax in health insurance costs, paid by individuals and employers.

When I lived in NJ which had no specific program to pay for health care to the indigent, my Blue Cross/Blue Shield bill was over $650 per month for one person. In Vermont, where there is a program to pay for the indigent, my Blue Cross/Blue Shield bill is under $200 per month, a savings of over $5000 per year. This is offset by about $1500 a year more in income tax.

Thus, I am far better off under the Vermont system than the NJ system. However, if I were a very wealthy person, such as conservative icon Limberger, I would be better off under the NJ system.

I assume you do not advocate a system where people who show up at the hospital without an insurance card or cash are left to die on the sidewalk.

Try not to get fooled by those fat cat conservative windbags. They are not looking out for you.
 
quote:

Originally posted by k1xv:
Keith:

There are many here who operate on the mistaken assumption that, under the present "system", those who need health care but cannot afford to pay for it do not get any...


I haven't read here of even one? Maybe some none US residents who think we chuck our sick to the dogs. LOL.

Apparently you are comfortable with the position that you have a right to a portion of someone elses life (their income).

But, in any event, my comments were specifically directed to Federal policy. States are where we should be providing local services.

My state has the terrific Husky plan to cover otherwise uninsured children for example. Signed, sealed and delivered by a Republican governor. Best plan for children in the whole US. I have a lot of sympathy for children, who we can't blame for having mediocre parents if even one of them is still around. I want to give them more educational choices too. My oldest daughter goes to a public inner city magnet school with an incredible mix of children - who are all EXCELLING.

I am not so sure about the value basis of NJ versus Vermont. Property tax alone in NJ will have you running for the border. I looked at buying a house there in 1990 or so (Parsippany area). After the realtor told me the mill rate, I turned the car around and left. I think you left NJ because they are funding way too many WASTEFUL boondoggles!

Keith.
 
Keith:

NJ was one of the most corrupt and expensive places to live in imaginable.

Parsippany is in the heart of Morris County, where the Republicans run everything, all the time.
grin.gif


My point on this topic is that one way or the other the health care needs of the indigent, working poor, etc. will be paid. If it is paid without a formal program, it will be paid via the private sector health insurance bills paid by individuals and employers, because hospital rates paid by these insurers are set to recover the hospital's entire cost, including cost of uncompensated care to those who cannot afford to pay.

For most middle income people, this represents a significant hidden tax built into health insurance rates. A more rational system to pay these costs would save most middle income people money. A lot of money.
 
Do you really think that Republicans are going to stop spending your money? Why would they, they already have you thinking they don't.

And, I must ask this, but I'm not trying to ignite a flame war or point fingers, but, since many conservatives like to go on about religon, Jesus, etc. I'd like some of you to explain the contradiction I see between spouting off about god, and ignoring the Bible's and Jesus' instructions about charity, responsibility that goes along with power and wealth, and just helping others in general.
Understand, I don't say that liberals always, or even most of the time act with good intentions any more than consrevatives do.
 
quote:

Originally posted by MarkC:
Do you really think that Republicans are going to stop spending your money?

I don't think either side will stop spending money now, its a race to see who can empty the public treasury the fastest....

This question was not a democrat v. republican question, it was a basic question about political philosophies...In my opinion, these days republicans and democrats are not that far apart. And, if you glance back up, I did not say which ideologies, only ideologies.

Some have been very predictable in their answers to my question, others have obviously given it some thought.
cheers.gif


Dan
 
Dan ...you must word the questions for all those polls that we hear...
grin.gif



Would support increased taxes if it meant more cops on the street, better education for your children, and improvements in our nations infrastructure?

A: Yes, I want to support the betterment of my society.
smile.gif


Same question:

Would want to send more money to political bimbos to spend in the exact same foolish selfserving fashion to do little good and only empty your wallet for their benefit?

A: No way!!
freak2.gif


That is, the answer isn't as important as how you "load" the question. Your first question is quite "loaded". That is, you've already poised it for a desired result (as though you didn't know that).
tongue.gif
 
Gary,

Honestly did not think of the questions as loaded other than pointing out the difference between people who want to do good with other people's money and those who want to do good with their own money.

To me this line seperates a large philosophical divide, especially if one wants to do good for others by using a tax system backed by coercion.

I am not against paying my fair share of taxes for necessary things, but losing 50% of my income to taxes, there is fat that needs to be trimmed.

Dan
 
I understand your anxiety (or anger) Dan, but I tend to look at it like a vessel. A ship if you will, on a never ending cruise. You've got poor on board and rich on board. Each gets their level of comfort commensurate with their respective "worth".

..but the passage still costs the same even if there are only a few first class passengers. Now you most certainly can feel that you don't "owe" that and that the poorer passengers are the reason of your high ticket price ...but try "not funding" the ship and what happens?

Dan, these are "natural" side effects of having more losers than winners. You can blame the reasons that these people are "losers". You can cling to myths of millions of crack smoking, baby producing, ghetto residents ...just living off the public dole and having it all come out of your pocket ...but it just isn't the case. I'll offer you an alternative view.

Take me. I was fairly gainfully employed. I made about $50k a year (knock off about a grand each year going back 15 years). No chimps did this job. We ran fairly sophisticated evaporators and other environmental systems from a computer control room. I was the chief guru. The engineers knew less than I did about the operations. It kinda felt like you were launching the space shuttle if you brought the system up from a shut down (gosh I miss it
frown.gif
)

Now that job is gone ...and, as with most heavy industry, there is very little to replace it. There are jobs like mine that are just as gainful (power production, etc.) ..but they are highly competitive and few in number.

So am I a crack smoking "loser"? No, I'm "un-needed" in that capacity. My 50k of tax revenue is now gone and replaced with anwhere from $26-35k a year tax revenue. Now multiply that by a tens of millions of people and you may just figuure out why you've got such a big tax bill. This "tax creep" has more to do with our dwindling wealth as a nation than it has to do with excessive taxation. There's no way around it.


You can blame it on whatever you like ..but it isn't going to change. Be prepared for more of it. You can take all the wellfare off the books ..take all the money that the rich could dump in and double it ...and it will still be the same. The food stamp program was so dwarft by the "increase" in medicare spending that it almost wasn't worth mentioning.


These are "The good old days", pal. You should be enjoying this brief luxury of economic freedom ..for it is surely coming to an end.
 
quote:

Originally posted by MarkC:
...And, I must ask this, but I'm not trying to ignite a flame war or point fingers, but, since many conservatives like to go on about religon, Jesus, etc. I'd like some of you to explain the contradiction I see between spouting off about god, and ignoring the Bible's and Jesus' instructions about charity, responsibility that goes along with power and wealth, and just helping others in general.
Understand, I don't say that liberals always, or even most of the time act with good intentions any more than consrevatives do.


Still no comments?
 
MarkC

I agree with you 100%. I have often found it odd, for example, that the same people who want every pregnancy to end in a live birth will often also oppose any public financial support of the mother and child once the child is born. I guess they want these infants to go out and get a job and support themselves.

And, as I have often said in the case of health care, sick people will get treatment at a hospital regardless of the existence of a formal public health care finance program, and the absense of such a program only results in driving up health insurance and health care costs to those who do pay, thereby creating an inefficient and unfair "hidden tax" on the cost of health care.

But no, some of our conservative friends would apparently prefer that the indigent be left to die on the sidewalk in front of a health care facility that they cannot afford to pay for out of their own pocket.

Sounds like something out of Dickens.
 
Its the conservatives fault people are having kids with no way to support them.

Marc, what exactly did Jesus say about charity, responsibility, power and wealth? Just curious? Seriously?
 
quote:

Originally posted by Not the Autorx Frank:
Its the conservatives fault people are having kids with no way to support them.

It's also the conservatives fault that dad can often not be found, anywhere.
 
quote:

I have often found it odd, for example, that the same people who want every pregnancy to end in a live birth will often also oppose any public financial support of the mother and child once the child is born. I guess they want these infants to go out and get a job and support themselves.

You forgot that they oppose birth control and sensible sex education as well. It's kinda like consequence weighted social forming. You spread lots of gasoline around ...and hand out matches ..and then sit there and say: See! People who play with fire get burned!" Knowing all the while that you set up the conditions to make it most assuredly so.

Pontius Pilates
 
quote:

Originally posted by Not the Autorx Frank:
Its the conservatives fault people are having kids with no way to support them.

Marc, what exactly did Jesus say about charity, responsibility, power and wealth? Just curious? Seriously?


Well, for starters:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Luke 18:25)

What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul.

"For I was hungry and you gave me food,


I was thirsty and you gave me drink,


I was a Stranger and you Welcomed me,


36 "I was naked and you clothed me,


I was sick and you visited me,


I was in prison and you came to me.'


40 "Truly, I say to you,


as you did it to


one of the least of these,


my brethren,


you did it to me.


I could go on, but I'm sure you can read the Bible for yourself.
 
Marc,

I hear you. And thank you for remiding me of a few verses I really didn't consider. Where does it say?

"For I was hungry and you gave me food because I spent all my money on crack.


I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a 32oz beer while begging on the corner because I spent all my money on booze.


I was sick and you visited me because I continue to abuse my body(temple) regardless of what God says.


I was in prison and you came to me and let me out because it seems more compassionate than making me pay for my crimes.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10:

9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

"He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy"
(Proverbs 28:13).

MarkC, I do appreciate your attitude, I think sometimes its easier to just hand out some health care or some other form of charity to fix the immediate circumstance rather than go at the real problem which is personal responsibility. Just my .02

BTW. I'm sure I would lose a biblical theology battle!! I'm sure I fall into one of those categories in 1 Corinthians.
 
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