imperatrixx
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Joined: 3/29/2011
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ORIGINAL: lockedaway
Imperatrixx, I'm kinda thinking you might be pretty far left on everything. Let me posit a few thoughts...thoughts that I consider to be realities.
To an American, maybe. To many other places including the country I currently live, thinking people have the right to receive medical treatment if they are sick is sort of like thinking people have the right to vote. It's a no brainer.
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First, all men are NOT created equal. Equality is a legal fiction that means that we convey an even playing field and that people are treated equally under the law. I was not born with the talent of Mozart, the imagination of JK Rowling, the legal prowess of Antonin Scalia or millions more people that have intellects and talents I could never hold a candle to. By the same token, however, I am brighter than a lot of folks as well, especially some on this board! (Never miss a shot to poke your opponent in the eye!) You will NEVER have a narrow margin between the rich and the poor. Please understand that. The rich are usually rich for a reason. More talent? Sure. More intellect? Sure. More ambition? Absolutely! (I say that coming from a family of immigrants. My grandmother would wake my grandfather up at 3:30 in the morning by putting his socks on him. He was an ice cream maker that became successful.) Fewer mistakes? Probably. A great many entrepreneurs who got rich didn't father children out of wedlock, didn't get addicted to drugs or a world of other bad behavior that a lot of people engaged in that turned them into the wardens of their own prisons. How do you correct that? How much money do you pour into trying to level a playing field when the players have disparate amounts of talent, desire, intellect and ambition? Have you ever head the old saying "water seeks its own level?" It applies to people every drop as much as water.
You are right that there will always be a difference between successful and unsuccessful. But I thought what you were aiming for was a strong middle class, not a way to facilitate the rich getting rich.
There's two ways to see welfare - one is the robin hood idea, taking from the rich to give from the poor. The other, though, cuts closer to the actual meaning of the word welfare - well being. It's the idea that there is a general sense of well being that citizens of a nation are afforded.
If you look at Nordic countries, the welfare system is set up to benefit the middle class. Things like healthcare, child care, caring for the elderly, etc. are not things that they subsidize for the poor because they can't afford it, but rather things that they offer to all of their citizens so their middle class doesn't have to worry about them. The rich, of course, can afford private health care, private day care, private retirement homes, but the point is that the average person on the street (not the poor, homeless drug addict that you so despise, but the average family with the receptionist mother and the laborer father) feels a sense of general security and welfare in their existence.
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Second. National Public Healthcare does NOT make for a civilized society. What makes for a civilized society is a common goal and shared sacrifice to advance that goal. You want national health care? Ok....ALL PEOPLE have to pay federal income tax as well as FICA and medicare. We have to court manufacturing back to this country so more people can find work. We have to create jobs. All people that get money from the government have to do something in return for it. The flow of illegal alien migration into this country must be stopped 100% (unlikely? Sure. Impossible? Sure. But you shoot for 100 and you end up with 90 and that is just fine.) Address some of the ills in this society and you can have a reasonable talk about trying to create the largest entitlement in the country's history. Until then, you advocate for financial slavery.
I completely agree that there are a lot of social ills in this country. But...we're talking about health care here. As in, if Jane gets breast cancer we won't let her die on the street.
A lot of what needs to be changed is the get rich/cut costs mentality. Illegal immigration for example - there are always going to be illegal immigrants...but compare the difference between the US and, say, Australia. Mexican immigrants crossing the border into the US would be comparable to the people coming by boat to Australia. The difference, though, is that in Australia they try to claim asylum. In the US, they just get a job under the table. Because there are so many people willing to hire them for less than the already shockingly low US minimum wage, so many people who are happy to get a maid or a tradesman for below market value. The idea of 'hiring American' is going the way of 'buying American' and hiring illegal immigrants is like shopping at Wal Mart. You know you shouldn't but it's sooooooo cheappppppp.
I also agree that we need to bring manufacturing back. We're trapped in this cycle of low wage earners in the working and lower middle class buying lots of cheap stuff. It's incredibly destructive. Doubly so when credit cards are involved.
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RE: If you want to cut education spending, but not mili... - 
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