416 wrote: Good points overall (although I disagree with most of them, but that's just me).
Thanks, I enjoyed reading your post too. Although it doesn't seem to be "just you" that disagrees with me here - one or two other people have also piped up.
You seem to believe that different peoples around the world are subject to the same societal laws, yet you use inflation (an economic phenomenon, not a social one) to support your point.
To me, the point you made seemed to be an economic point; welfare is an economic issue.
Sure, water boils at around 100 Celsius in India just like in North Dakota, but that does not mean that, for that reason, the two families wh are boiling the water will respond identically to identical social stimuli.
No; but if someone predicts that slaughtering cows for meat leads to horrible guilt and social ostracism, it's perfectly valid for me to point out that that rule isn't generally true, and to use the North Dakota family as an example proving my point.
If the folks in this thread who have been saying that socialism is always a terrible thing want to specify that they're talking only about in the USA, then that would be one thing. But I don't really believe that's how most of them mean it when they criticize socialism; they're talking about general principles, not regional principles.
You pick on my remark that socialism has not worked in any nation it has been tried. You say I shouldn't say that, since I believe that different laws apply to different societies. But then, if my theory was so out of whack, how do YOU propose that socialism work so well here when it has failed so miserably elsewhere?
Socialism - in the sense I've been discussing from my first post on this thread, which is to say mixed-market economies with strong socialist leanings - has not failed miserably everywhere. The Netherlands aren't a perfect soceity (anymore than the US is), but they're certainly not an economic failure. Neither is Sweden, neither is France, neither is Denmark.
I thought that same societal laws apply to all societies. So if Russia's experiment with socialism hasn't exactly been a shining success, why should we expect different results in America? Sorry, but you can't have it both ways.
Russia's big mistake, in my view, was to have an authoritative, ruthless, murdering, and profoundly nondemocratic government. The example of Pinochet's Chile shows that this is a mistake whether the economic system the despots (claim to) prefer is Marxism or Chicago-school capitalism.
Personally, I don't think the USSR was socialist, any more than they were democratic. They claimed to be socialist, and they claimed to be democratic, but that they make a claim doesn't mean that it was true.
Then, you ask me to enumerate the negative byproducts that single parents on welfare have produced.
Is there any reason to believe that the same harms wouldn't have happened to single mothers not on welfare?
Lack of proper parental guidance, gang activity as a way to "belong", crime, drugs, ignorance, more illegitimacy.... need I go on?
Well, it would be nice if you presented some sort of argument or evidence connecting these things to single motherhood, and also (and much more importantly) some evidence that single motherhood is caused by welfare.
Even if I agree that poor single-parent families cause all those bad effects (and I don't), that wouldn't mean a thing because single motherhood isn't caused by welfare. There's no connection between the two; cutting welfare benefits doesn't lead to a drop in births to single moms.
(By the way, I can't buy the "don't tell me facts, I know what I believe" attitude you've brought to your posts. If you don't want to bring facts into the discussion, stop making factual claims! If you make or imply empirical claims - like a connection between welfare and the number of single parent families - then it's hypocritical to imply there's something wrong with me doing the same to rebut you).
Do I have statistics to prove that? No, and I don't need them.
Gee, how convenient. Conservative views don't need to be proved.
I think that, for once, the burden of proof is on you liberals to show that these "alternative lifestyles" are making a better America. Don't give me easily-manipulated numbers. Give me a good amount of success stories showing that someone growing up in a welfare ghetto with a single parent on the dole and 10 attention-starved siblings is better off than someone living in a "traditional" family.
The average family on welfare has about two children, by the way. The image of single mothers with 10 state-supported children in the ghettos is a vicious stereotype, with no more fairness or accuracy than the image of a racist survivalist hiding in a bunker waiting to take pot-shots at BTF agents as the average gun rights advocate.
Then, by all means I might budge. But, somehow, I bet you can't.
I've never claimed that children are better off in single-parent families, and I refuse to feel obligated to prove something I've never claimed.
Here is what I do claim: Given that there are poor single-parent families, they're better off if they're less poor, and income transfer programs do make many families less poor.
Of course, we'd be better off still if no one had children unless they could afford to care for them, and if no one ever died leaving a widow or widower behind, and if no one ever abandoned their families leaving their former partners signle parents; but all these things will continue to happen whether we have welfare or not.
I will answer you that it all depends on what you mean by "education", which is probably very different from my understanding of what education should be.
Okay, this is fair enough. But that begs the question: what should education be, in your understanding?
While nothing stops you from donating all your excess income to various causes, I resent you trying to impose that same behavior on me. Why? Because I may disagree with those particular "causes", or because I may have other priorities. I may care more about the elderly and less about the children. I may care more about defence and less about welfare programs. See the point?
So would you argue that I shouldn't be made to pay taxes for defense, if I don't like the way the US uses its military?
I don't think so. I think we live in a republic, in which we democratically elect representatives to decide what we want to do as a collective. If our reps decide we should waste that money in a genocidal attack on Iraq, I hate it - and I loathe most of my fellow citizens for not objecting - but I also recognize that this is their right under our system of government. Even though my tax dollars help pay for it.
Similarly for income transfers - if a democratically-elected government wants to enact income transfer programs, using all of our tax dollars (mine as well as yours), then that's fair. You may not like it personally, any more than I like our Iraq policy personally, but you and I don't get to personally decide these things in a democractic republic.
I still contend that socialism is the most macroscopic example of a doctrine doomed to fail every time it is tried - and I am truly amazed of how easily people of no mediocre intellect still get seduced by it.
How do you reconcile this view with the very obvious fact that not every country with a strong socialist streak in their mixed-market has failed?
Some of the greatest blunders of the 20th century were directly or indirectly related to this ill-conceived utopia, and if you want statistics, my friend, just look at the number of dead in WWII and get an idea.
Actually, I believe that a lust for conquest combined with a lack of democracy and a hugly murderious racist/anti-semitic streak would be a bad thing under any economic system.
--Amp
Thanks, I enjoyed reading your post too. Although it doesn't seem to be "just you" that disagrees with me here - one or two other people have also piped up.
You seem to believe that different peoples around the world are subject to the same societal laws, yet you use inflation (an economic phenomenon, not a social one) to support your point.
To me, the point you made seemed to be an economic point; welfare is an economic issue.
Sure, water boils at around 100 Celsius in India just like in North Dakota, but that does not mean that, for that reason, the two families wh are boiling the water will respond identically to identical social stimuli.
No; but if someone predicts that slaughtering cows for meat leads to horrible guilt and social ostracism, it's perfectly valid for me to point out that that rule isn't generally true, and to use the North Dakota family as an example proving my point.
If the folks in this thread who have been saying that socialism is always a terrible thing want to specify that they're talking only about in the USA, then that would be one thing. But I don't really believe that's how most of them mean it when they criticize socialism; they're talking about general principles, not regional principles.
You pick on my remark that socialism has not worked in any nation it has been tried. You say I shouldn't say that, since I believe that different laws apply to different societies. But then, if my theory was so out of whack, how do YOU propose that socialism work so well here when it has failed so miserably elsewhere?
Socialism - in the sense I've been discussing from my first post on this thread, which is to say mixed-market economies with strong socialist leanings - has not failed miserably everywhere. The Netherlands aren't a perfect soceity (anymore than the US is), but they're certainly not an economic failure. Neither is Sweden, neither is France, neither is Denmark.
I thought that same societal laws apply to all societies. So if Russia's experiment with socialism hasn't exactly been a shining success, why should we expect different results in America? Sorry, but you can't have it both ways.
Russia's big mistake, in my view, was to have an authoritative, ruthless, murdering, and profoundly nondemocratic government. The example of Pinochet's Chile shows that this is a mistake whether the economic system the despots (claim to) prefer is Marxism or Chicago-school capitalism.
Personally, I don't think the USSR was socialist, any more than they were democratic. They claimed to be socialist, and they claimed to be democratic, but that they make a claim doesn't mean that it was true.
Then, you ask me to enumerate the negative byproducts that single parents on welfare have produced.
Is there any reason to believe that the same harms wouldn't have happened to single mothers not on welfare?
Lack of proper parental guidance, gang activity as a way to "belong", crime, drugs, ignorance, more illegitimacy.... need I go on?
Well, it would be nice if you presented some sort of argument or evidence connecting these things to single motherhood, and also (and much more importantly) some evidence that single motherhood is caused by welfare.
Even if I agree that poor single-parent families cause all those bad effects (and I don't), that wouldn't mean a thing because single motherhood isn't caused by welfare. There's no connection between the two; cutting welfare benefits doesn't lead to a drop in births to single moms.
(By the way, I can't buy the "don't tell me facts, I know what I believe" attitude you've brought to your posts. If you don't want to bring facts into the discussion, stop making factual claims! If you make or imply empirical claims - like a connection between welfare and the number of single parent families - then it's hypocritical to imply there's something wrong with me doing the same to rebut you).
Do I have statistics to prove that? No, and I don't need them.
Gee, how convenient. Conservative views don't need to be proved.
I think that, for once, the burden of proof is on you liberals to show that these "alternative lifestyles" are making a better America. Don't give me easily-manipulated numbers. Give me a good amount of success stories showing that someone growing up in a welfare ghetto with a single parent on the dole and 10 attention-starved siblings is better off than someone living in a "traditional" family.
The average family on welfare has about two children, by the way. The image of single mothers with 10 state-supported children in the ghettos is a vicious stereotype, with no more fairness or accuracy than the image of a racist survivalist hiding in a bunker waiting to take pot-shots at BTF agents as the average gun rights advocate.
Then, by all means I might budge. But, somehow, I bet you can't.
I've never claimed that children are better off in single-parent families, and I refuse to feel obligated to prove something I've never claimed.
Here is what I do claim: Given that there are poor single-parent families, they're better off if they're less poor, and income transfer programs do make many families less poor.
Of course, we'd be better off still if no one had children unless they could afford to care for them, and if no one ever died leaving a widow or widower behind, and if no one ever abandoned their families leaving their former partners signle parents; but all these things will continue to happen whether we have welfare or not.
I will answer you that it all depends on what you mean by "education", which is probably very different from my understanding of what education should be.
Okay, this is fair enough. But that begs the question: what should education be, in your understanding?
While nothing stops you from donating all your excess income to various causes, I resent you trying to impose that same behavior on me. Why? Because I may disagree with those particular "causes", or because I may have other priorities. I may care more about the elderly and less about the children. I may care more about defence and less about welfare programs. See the point?
So would you argue that I shouldn't be made to pay taxes for defense, if I don't like the way the US uses its military?
I don't think so. I think we live in a republic, in which we democratically elect representatives to decide what we want to do as a collective. If our reps decide we should waste that money in a genocidal attack on Iraq, I hate it - and I loathe most of my fellow citizens for not objecting - but I also recognize that this is their right under our system of government. Even though my tax dollars help pay for it.
Similarly for income transfers - if a democratically-elected government wants to enact income transfer programs, using all of our tax dollars (mine as well as yours), then that's fair. You may not like it personally, any more than I like our Iraq policy personally, but you and I don't get to personally decide these things in a democractic republic.
I still contend that socialism is the most macroscopic example of a doctrine doomed to fail every time it is tried - and I am truly amazed of how easily people of no mediocre intellect still get seduced by it.
How do you reconcile this view with the very obvious fact that not every country with a strong socialist streak in their mixed-market has failed?
Some of the greatest blunders of the 20th century were directly or indirectly related to this ill-conceived utopia, and if you want statistics, my friend, just look at the number of dead in WWII and get an idea.
Actually, I believe that a lust for conquest combined with a lack of democracy and a hugly murderious racist/anti-semitic streak would be a bad thing under any economic system.
--Amp
Glad to have those carriers!
), while I in turn would have to pay for welfare, which is something I dislike but can stomach in small doses. There's nothing wrong with charity, IMHO, but I would rather give to the less fortunate in a manner of my own choosing, rather than having money stolen out of my paycheck to be "redistributed".
), but that they tend to take care of those top priorities first, then what's left over is for play time.