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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
One side wants more Government. The other wants less Government and more reliance on our selves.

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ORIGINAL: xBullx

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ORIGINAL: MasterSlaveLA

 
I'm not so sure one having a "D" or an "R" after one's name means much these days?!!  I think the vast majority on BOTH SIDES suck, and are more concerned about themselves than the people they serve. (shrugs)

That............

I prefer a lot less government, no matter the flavor. I think my best chance at success is in my own hands.

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ORIGINAL: Mupainurpleasure

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ORIGINAL: xBullx

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ORIGINAL: MasterSlaveLA


I'm not so sure one having a "D" or an "R" after one's name means much these days?!! I think the vast majority on BOTH SIDES suck, and are more concerned about themselves than the people they serve. (shrugs)

That............

I prefer a lot less government, no matter the flavor. I think my best chance at success is in my own hands.

I don't know you or your circumstances. I do know Iowa would collapse without farm subsidies. They are number 2 in the nation given the total population seems odd they wouuld be number 2 22 billion in direct cash payments over 15 yrs is a lot of cash going into a smallish state. It's 36k direct cash payments per family. I know all families arent farmners etc but they spend that money and it ripples through the entore economy. I seriously doubt you'd be better off if Iowa wasnt getting her welfare. If you were say a mechanic that's a lot less cars on the road, a lot less money for repairs, a lot less two car families


While I agree both sides have suckage . I think most americans dont realize how muxch they do depend on goverment programs. Hell people on social security will say no when asked if they benefit form a goverment program

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The truth of the matter is that politicians, regardless of stripe, work towards re-election, almost as soon as the results are in. There are few exceptions.

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We all want the same end results. It's true. Does anyone truly want all grandma's wheeled off the cliff?

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No they're both horrid.

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ORIGINAL: Marini
The climate is ripe for a new political party these days!
I think many people would welcome a 3rd party that could be a contender.

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ORIGINAL: xBullx

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ORIGINAL: Mupainurpleasure

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ORIGINAL: xBullx

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ORIGINAL: MasterSlaveLA


I'm not so sure one having a "D" or an "R" after one's name means much these days?!! I think the vast majority on BOTH SIDES suck, and are more concerned about themselves than the people they serve. (shrugs)

That............

I prefer a lot less government, no matter the flavor. I think my best chance at success is in my own hands.

I don't know you or your circumstances. I do know Iowa would collapse without farm subsidies. They are number 2 in the nation given the total population seems odd they wouuld be number 2 22 billion in direct cash payments over 15 yrs is a lot of cash going into a smallish state. It's 36k direct cash payments per family. I know all families arent farmners etc but they spend that money and it ripples through the entore economy. I seriously doubt you'd be better off if Iowa wasnt getting her welfare. If you were say a mechanic that's a lot less cars on the road, a lot less money for repairs, a lot less two car families


While I agree both sides have suckage . I think most americans dont realize how muxch they do depend on goverment programs. Hell people on social security will say no when asked if they benefit form a goverment program

Not from Iowa are you? This is a typical statement of the uninformed, a person with an agenda to misinform or a non-farmer. And most farmers and those of us that support the farm industry are well aware of what we call government interference.

You are aware that food subsides aren't designed for the farmers benefit so much as for the benefit of the masses; the masses of folks that would starve if food was too expensive or in possibly too short of supply without subsidization (though I’d doubt supply would be a problem if you could afford to pay, demand always keeps the production levels rising, even if you don’t like genetic enhancement). This is a well-known fact around these parts and I assure you Iowa would be just fine without these federal programs. Sure there might be an adjustment period, but farmers are nothing if not resilient. In fact, the typical farmer would prefer no assistance, no federal meddling and so forth.

And don't throw that friggin' subsidy of ethanol out here at the farmer again. Did we benefit? Yes, but it was some renewable energy program also designed to benefit the masses that provided an opportunity to the common farmer, and just like any other businessman he'd have been foolish not to take advantage of it. But I'll tell you this; it's raised costs and created other problems for us as well. So don't continue making this ethanol thing out to be the farmer's program. The American populace bitched about the farmer’s subsidy of ethanol causing their prices to go up, but be the beef or pork feeder that has to purchase or use his own high dollar grains to feed his livestock. Costs went up here as well.

If supply and demand truly controlled the price of your dinner the farmer would be far wealthier than you might think. However at that point it is possible that the old feudal lord culture would re-emerge because owning the land and workin' the fuck out of the peasants (slaves, indentured and otherwise) would again be common and a point of power.

Concurrently you do realize this board of trade and those hated speculators are as big a part of the modern farm program as any subsidy. Without Calls, and Puts and the ability to hedge costs even these annoying subsidies wouldn't suffice. You see the farmer doesn't actually get to set his own price due to supply and demand. The board of trade actually establishes the guide. The farmers have had to deal, for decades with this system that the cost of oil has recently brought to light for you all. A pain in the ass isn't it. But, you get good at using such things when left with no choice.

A good friend of my fathers was actually one of the most influential men in the pork and beef industry, he has since passed on. But he was brilliant at market manipulation. Everything he did was legal(ish) within the given parameters of law, but as an eventual CEO he figured way after way of how to make an influence on the markets and pushed a small packer started in the 60's by three Iowa fellows selling stock options on a chance into the world's largest, safest, most productive and most profitable meat processor. Now some fellow from Arkansas owes the company. Corporate buyout.

He didn't need subsidies any more than any farmer here does. You see, if you hand a man a crutch and tell him long enough he needs it to walk, eventually he'll either learn to take advantage of it, or he'll become dependent upon it.

Farm subsidies were never meant to save the farmer; they were implemented to stave off the revolts that would ensue due to the starvation of the masses. So don't use the farmer to justify any of your other entitlement programs. We lowly ole farm folk and dirt workin' peasants would gladly stand-alone financially out here in the sticks.

That being said, the farmer doesn't see this as an us against them scenario. Around these parts we take great pride in our part of America, we want you all to feel safe and confident with the food supply. While we certainly have community pride, we don't call it Iowa's, Nebraska's, Ohio’s or any other rural Geographic’s food, we are American and so is the food we produce.

So no, we don’t depend on government farm subsidies, the non-farmer does. However, this is an instance where your tax dollars actually serves the greater good, not just a societal segment with an ever-growing sense of dependency. We all enjoy not cheap, but cost effective food and plenty of it.

A non-political message of information from the heartland.

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ORIGINAL: hot4bondage

More than a few Democrats are distancing themselves from the evolved Obama today. Another reason why the terms statist/constitutionalist are far more descriptive than Democrat/Republican or liberal/conservative.

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ORIGINAL: Mupainurpleasure

Yeah ok, now that you told me a fairy tale go educate yourself. Subsides were started to RAISE the price of commodities and support farm income. If they were withdrawn farmers would revert to the place the held on the income rung before they were enacted and they were enacted because farmers were dirt poor. You made my point well when you argue someone gtting a goverment check is taking the money for my benefit........ commodity prices are supply and demand those checks limit supply. I also think they are a good thing but need revamping. Monsanto is not a family farmer. they should be modeled to help family farms not mega corps

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ORIGINAL: Karmastic

Okay - comments.

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ORIGINAL: xBullx

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ORIGINAL: Mupainurpleasure

Yeah ok, now that you told me a fairy tale go educate yourself. Subsides were started to RAISE the price of commodities and support farm income. If they were withdrawn farmers would revert to the place the held on the income rung before they were enacted and they were enacted because farmers were dirt poor. You made my point well when you argue someone gtting a goverment check is taking the money for my benefit........ commodity prices are supply and demand those checks limit supply. I also think they are a good thing but need revamping. Monsanto is not a family farmer. they should be modeled to help family farms not mega corps

When I was a kid every farm was multi-dimensional. They raised everything to remain flexible to take advantage of need and market fluctuation. While there were subsidies then, I also remember most farmers bitchin' about having to use them to compete. More often than not they were created to offset other government programs designed to keep food inexpensive. But since it’s obvious that my education and yours taught us different things I won’t concede to telling you to go educate yourself.

You see you can’t credit subsidies for technological and other farm advancement. It’s like you’re implying no one would have advanced on the farm without the government, while the government may have had to help in certain ways, more often than not it was due to their meddling in other areas. But I am resigned to ask; is it your implication that the farmer is incompetent and unable to evolve into prosperity on his own, without the government? You do realize that it was due to government programs and subsidies in other areas of life to begin with that Ten Year Ground as a subsidy was necessary to begin with. This is the type of subsidy that encourages, and in fact pays farmers an appropriation to discontinue production of certain crops.

Once upon a time every occupational genre had to struggle to get on its feet, even the railroad, hell they're still favored. Vanderbilt wasn't born with a railroad in his pocket. Whenever the government subsidizes, it picks the winners and doesn't always inspire prosperity for all.

Farmers have all your subsidy programs at this point and the last I looked the number of family farms is still on the decline. The old farmer didn't have the education of the new farmer and stubborn methods too caused problems in advancement, but each generation came to harness new ideas and new methods of production. Farming in my opinion was an area that was resistant to industrialization and that too lead to its inability to maintain pace with the needs of the modern world and the economic explosion it wrought. So if you want to subsidize the farmer, do it through education, not handouts.

As I tell other parts of these forums, perspective is the answer to most debates we witness. You can toss insults around that my view is a fantasy, but I assure you that your view is no less partisan or imagined to me than how you view mine.

Edited to add to the other posters, sorry about the derailment. I'll agree to disagree with this poster and move on.

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ORIGINAL: SilverMark

In many ways they are so similar it is hard to differentiate. Then there is the Tea Party members of the R's....if they aren't enough to scare you, I'd hate to see what would!

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ORIGINAL: Moonhead
Right. So how are the Republicans not statists, then?

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ORIGINAL: Moonhead

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
One side wants more Government. The other wants less Government and more reliance on our selves.

An even falser dichotomy than the good/evil thing when you look at which party's Presidents have done the most to extend the influence of government on the lives of its citizens and extend the scope of government powers.

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ORIGINAL: Karmastic

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ORIGINAL: Moonhead

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
One side wants more Government. The other wants less Government and more reliance on our selves.

An even falser dichotomy than the good/evil thing when you look at which party's Presidents have done the most to extend the influence of government on the lives of its citizens and extend the scope of government powers.

like the patriot act?