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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

Chimpanzees are social animals.

If you think hard, you may be able to identify some differences. It's why (most of us) don't mate with them.

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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

They look after their own.

We have become a nation without values, however. Not even animal values.

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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

They look after their own.

We have become a nation without values, however. Not even animal values.

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In Venezuela, because some people believe socialism is the answer to inequality, people starve

Venezuela descends into chaos. Its people, once the wealthiest in Latin America, starve. Even The New York Times runs headlines like "Dying Infants and No Medicine."

My Venezuelan-born friend Kenny says his relatives are speaking differently. Cousins who once answered "Fine" or "Good" when asked, "How are you?" now say, "We're eating."

Eating is a big deal in the country that's given birth to jokes about a "Venezuelan diet." A survey by three universities found 75 percent of Venezuelans lost an average 19 pounds this year.

So are American celebrities who championed Venezuela's "people's revolution" embarrassed? Will they admit they were wrong?

...

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ORIGINAL: BoscoX

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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

Chimpanzees are social animals.

If you think hard, you may be able to identify some differences. It's why (most of us) don't mate with them.

Many mammals are social animals. Did you have a point other than the one on your tiny little troll head

Whales, wolves, groundhogs... All social animals

How many do well when made dependant on handouts

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ORIGINAL: igor2003

Whales and wolves work together to be sure everyone is fed. Groundhogs work together to avoid becoming food for predators. The key words there are "work together".

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ORIGINAL: tamaka

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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What food and shelter to you get because you are a human in nature? Fiddleheads in the spring? Mushrooms? A cave? A pile of leaves? I suppose it would depend on where your physical form is currently residing. I am pretty sure that self-defense is a much more "natural" right than food and shelter.

The question in this thread is not what do I get but what am I entitled to as an American.

In Nature man is at war with all other men; we fall into a “survival of the fittest” (Spencer) and life is “short and brutish” (Hobbes) Individual self-defense is inadequate.

That is why we formed a social contract and gave up some of our liberties to a central authority.

In addition, we have developed a high sense of moral authority which leads us to support each other. Poverty and hunger are immoral and a failure of the social contract.

Actually we are debating whether such a contract exists, right? I mean, if you read the book Stone Soup, everyone brought something.

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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ORIGINAL: tamaka

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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What food and shelter to you get because you are a human in nature? Fiddleheads in the spring? Mushrooms? A cave? A pile of leaves? I suppose it would depend on where your physical form is currently residing. I am pretty sure that self-defense is a much more "natural" right than food and shelter.

The question in this thread is not what do I get but what am I entitled to as an American.

In Nature man is at war with all other men; we fall into a “survival of the fittest” (Spencer) and life is “short and brutish” (Hobbes) Individual self-defense is inadequate.

That is why we formed a social contract and gave up some of our liberties to a central authority.

In addition, we have developed a high sense of moral authority which leads us to support each other. Poverty and hunger are immoral and a failure of the social contract.

Actually we are debating whether such a contract exists, right? I mean, if you read the book Stone Soup, everyone brought something.

But then there are the lame and mentally ill. Are they to be stopped at the door? I believe there is a social compact. I also believe it is continually violated by selfish, greedy, murderous people.

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ORIGINAL: bounty44

Vincent, if jesus himself is saying "you will always have the poor with you", then "poverty and hunger" are not failures of the social contract per se---they are a part of the fallen nature of the world.

Then you would have to put the blame on God.


in light of that "contract" consider our founding---"that governments are created to protect our inalienable rights (those that come from god)...life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..."

that sentiment cannot rightly be construed to mean that governments exist to make sure we are fed, but rather that no man can take our lives, or our freedom, and that with our lives and freedom we can pursue our own course of actions.

But some suffer limitations beyond their control. Are we to step over and ignore the homeless schizophrenic who is slumped on the sidewalk? Or should we lift him up? Feeding and healing are part of the civil guarantee of Life, wouldn't you say?


if you find poverty and hunger immoral, that's commendable---I would ask you what you yourself are doing about it other than voting for politicians that want to coerce others through taxation to address the matter?

if you are indeed doing something---donating to food pantries, volunteering to cook or deliver meals, etc, then that is a right moral response.

What I do individually is besides the point of this debate.

if you are forcing me and others to do so by taking our money, even if the ends are "good", you have NOT done something morally good.

We are not forcing other than by legislative authority we have agreed upon that all must participate in the compact. It is civil "insurance" that we spread the risk among the healthy and wealthy.

Your notion of Liberty arises from the flawed writings of John Locke.