Mercnbeth
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beth has already ranted about this, and I tried my best not to even read this thread when she told me about it. But WOW!
This just shows how having labels and names for everything and every circumstance is a VERY BAD thing. Myopic vision creates political prejudice. Just for amusement here is another slant on your post.
The $10 medication co-pay. How about if it as well as medical expenses were free? Easy to do - a 50-75% income tax. Reference any county in Europe. And interesting to note - most who can afford it DO NOT go to state run hospitals for any major procedure
Shampoo - but the label was developed from testing on poor little bunny eyes we shouldn't do that! And I'm sure you are driving an electric car and don't use any electricity generated from oil, gas, coal, or (god forbid) nuclear power plants. This position indicates that only liberals breath. Only liberals want their children to see trees, only liberals drink pure water. A bottled water industry didn't exist in 1960. Yet with the implementation of all the liberal clean water programs no one drinks tab water.
Union's accomplished the elimination of child labor and exploitation in the United States, established a 40 hour work week, and effected many more positive changes. They created the "middle class", or the "working class". What does that have to do with "liberalism"?
The FDIC and The FSLIC were established to help the rich not the poor. Do many of us have $100,000 in cash in a standard bank account? Are you even aware that there is a whole other level of banking called "Private Banking" within your little bank? And btw - you are paying for that 'insurance', and it was available prior to the bank failures of the 1929 Depression. It was the insurance model that was used when the FDIC ("I" standing for insurance) was established. Know of any liberal insurance companies?
Fannie Mae, and student loans - again paid for by you and me. Not liberal but VERY conservative. How would you like to invest your $100,000 that you have sitting in a bank making maybe 0.10% earning 5 or 6% lending it to a unqualified student or home owner? You wouldn't jump at the chance, but maybe you would if the government guaranteed your money. Your tax dollars go to these investors. Want to know who invests in these liberal programs? VERY smart conservatives and conservative institutions who have $$$.
Roads and most of the power grid were created by the government programs of the depression. A little known fact is that 85% of the programs were later determined un-constitutional. Want a current example of a good idea gone bad when the government gets involved? Like cable? Know why you don't have more then 1 cable option and that 1 cable company can set any rate it wants and give you any programming it wants? Because they were given EXCLUSIVE rights because they wired the locality.
Do you really plan on Social Security? Depending on your age there will be very little left. Right now it takes 3 people to work to pay for each person on SS, by 2020 it will take 10-15 people at the current SS tax rate. You know, of course that there really is NO money sitting in some account under your name. This money is allegedly yours - yet when you die, no one inherits it. Your spouse may get some of it, but at a lesser rate then if you lived. But it's your money??? Say you had paid into SS at least $10,000 in 1990. If you put your SS money instead into a conservative money market fund that $10,000.00 would be a minimum of $150,000.00. And it would be for you and yours to spend. Instead we have SS. In this case you are right - this does define a liberal socialist program.
So what is the solution - a Flat Tax with no deductions no tax shelters no itemization? Well, then you just eliminate 90% of the charitable funds - with no incentive how many would still 'donate'. And let's not forget the biggest and last great deduction home interest. Wow would property values in California fall if this was off the table. Instant personal bankruptcy would occur for most. I know people who pay an effective 14% tax rate making $250,000 because they can deduct the interest in their $500,000 2 bedroom house here in CA. And lets remember none of us own anything. Think you own your house? Try not paying your real estate tax.
How about a national sales tax to pay for these programs. A 2% sales tax will generate more funds then all the existing federal taxes. It's estimated that 1% would create a surplus. Sounds too good and using percentages are a great way to screw people. A sales tax is a consumption tax, you only pay it when you consume something. Say a family of four consumes about $20,000 of food for a year - at 2% they pay 400 of tax. Family 'A' makes a total of $30,000. a year, family 'B' makes $150,000. a year. Is a flat sales tax fair to both of them?
I don't think even the liberal college professors still site socialism as a solution. There is no working example and never has been one in human history. Only the insect world has successful socialism, but I doubt even the staunchest liberal would allow social slavery as occurs in ant or bee colonies.
I, being a devote pragmatist will attempt to enjoy life as best I can. And hope I spend my last penny buying a new toy from a sex shop, and die in the act of using it.
I'd ask that you consider this pondering sent to me today...
At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in the year 1787, Alexander Tyler (a Scottish history professor at The University of Edinburgh) had this to say about "The Fall of The Athenian Republic" some 2,000 years prior.
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From Bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."
Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the previous Presidential election:
Population of counties won by:
Gore=127 million Bush=143 million
Square miles of land won by:
Gore=580,000 Bush=2,427,000
States Won By Gore=19 Bush=29
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Gore=13.2 Bush=2.1
Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this great country.
Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off government welfare..."
Olson believes the U.S. is now somewhere between the "complacency" and "apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy; with some 40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.
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Damn Liberals! - 
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(see? there's that apathy at work again). i'm working to slowly introduce myself back into the political forums a bit at a time (too much at once tends to trigger my gag reflex 
). 
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