Posted on 11/10/2006 7:24:07 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The welfare state can't be gotten rid of, because it will reduce most Americans to poverty.
First, most Americans would not get an education if it weren't for public schools.
Second, most Americans would not be able to go to college were it not for veteran's benefits or student loans.
Third, almost no Americans could pay the cost of medical care in their final year of life, when they have no income.
Fourth, absent Social Security, hardly any Americans have the means to support themselves on their own investments through the end of life.
Fifth, there would be a lot of starving factory workers and their families whenever there's an economic downturn and layoffs, but for unemployment insurance.
We need the social welfare state if most of us don't want to be ignorant, poor, and die in penury and without modern medical treatment.
We also need it if we don't want to be beset by crime and have the constant risk of popular revolt.
So no, it's not possible to convince any sort of working majority in America to ever dismantle the welfare state. People are not going to vote against their own security like that.
We really ought to put that sort of thing out of our mind as a goal. It's not even a DESIREABLE goal, when you get right down to it. We need to social welfare state. But it needs to be efficient, supervised and well-regulated, not a sprawling, wasteful mess. And on THAT we can work.
I should not need to post this explanation, but every Republican with very few exceptions, are conservative to varying degrees. Within the party there there is a right wing with two distinct divisions and mixes of both, a center with all kinds of variations, and a left with the same makeup as the right hand side, offering two divisions of the group.
Both divisions on the right vied to see who controls the party, and attacked the middle and left. Both divisions, the fiscal right, and the social conservative right, tried to purge the party of it's middle and left, which comprises about two thirds of the party.
Do I need to go any further before you realize the faulty logic of these actions...
Anyhooo! That's what happened, and why we are now on the outside looking in, and from commentary made by our various punditry since the elections, this situation is going to get much worse before it gets better, and will also affect the '08 elections, digging the hole deeper.
Hope that explains it for you....
Then why are you pi$$ed, you have liberals in charge?
What I am saying is that if you keep this up, the hole will end up a lot deeper in '08, and I'm assuming that it will.
Simply because of your response and how the party's right wing sees the center, this will continue.
Aside from the fact that we're going to reprise Vietnam's end game in Iraq, the Republican loss was a good thing.
31,000,000 AINOs voted "D." Until they are permanently excised from the American body politic, America will never win a war.
Then let them save and get to WORK. I have less pocket money now than I did 6 years ago and I make almost double ... the reason? TAXES !
"Then let them save and get to WORK. I have less pocket money now than I did 6 years ago and I make almost double ... the reason? TAXES !"
Unemployment is near record lows. They ARE working, just like you.
And no, your taxes didn't go up in the past 6 years. They went down. Bush was elected. You have less pocket money because gas got a lot more experisive, energy got a lot more expensive in general. Thank the rise of China and India (needing more oil and gas than ever) and the Iraq war (taking Iraqi oil out of the world energy flow) for that.
You also have less pocket money because health care costs have exploded. You have less pocket money because housing costs exploded.
None of this had anything to do with taxes, which are as low as they've been since Reagan.
The government is not stripping you of your money. Inflation in the regular old economy is.
How much can you save of your income a year?
Add that up. Are you going to be able to live on the interest off of that for 30 years after you retire?
Are you going to be able to pay for cancer treatments off of that?
No.
That's why you need the social safety net: Social Security and Medicare will pay for those things which you won't be able to.
If you have kids, can you afford to send them to private school? Yes? No? Could your parents afford to send YOU to private school? No? The social safety net probably provided you with the education that your parents probably couldn't afford to provide on their own dollar. And are they old and nearing retirement? Without Social Security and Medicare, do they have the means, just sitting in the bank, to provide themselves a living income off the interest for the rest of their lives, including paying for all of their health care costs?
Hardly anybody has that much money, and hardly anybody can save that much money. That's why we've erected a social welfare state, and that's why we're going to keep it.
We need to be realistic about this.
Like I said you should be happy, get over it, conservative principles are not for sale to the big tent RINO's.
Bush, Dole, Bush same cloth.
I was born in 1938, in rural Oklahoma, so I know of what you speak. It is the loss of American Culture that saddens me the most, but neither party is going to change that.
in 1955, I had an appendectomy along with peritonitis. I spent three days in the hospital, the total bill for hospital, surgery, and doctor $300.00, about a month's pay at the time
A couple months back, I had a laporoscopic surgery to look at a kidney, the bill was $60,000.00 and rising, a little more than a month's pay for most I would say.
American culture could have been saved by strenuous GOP action on the border. But the GOP divided on it. Now the Democrats are in charge, and the faster amnesty happens, the sooner they are assured of insurmountable majorities forever unless the Republicans can find SOMETHING with which to woo Latinos.
Pro-family, pro-life is one such thing, but that isn't enough to bring blacks (who are more religious on average than whites) to vote GOP, even when the GOP runs sterling black candidates like Steele.
No, it's about the money.
People have their moral beliefs, but their urgent, pressing economic needs trump, and always will.
That is why I say we have to be REALISTIC. Waging a jihad against Social Security, Medicare, public education, etc. will never end in victory. At the end of the day and life 95% of Americans are dependent on these things. And they won't undo them.
Politics and principle are not always symbiotic.
There are times when it is necessary to moderate or change on some closely held understandings.
If you want to salvage some of what you want, you will be required to negotiate. If you take the position that all your beliefs and desires are principles that cannot be negotiated, then you walk away from the table with nothing.
at some point in time, all negotiation attempts stop and you slide into irrelevance, with your now forgotten principles.
This is the definition of politics. History's ash can is full of long forgotten, yet closely held principles. Perhaps you will be adding some more to the pile.
It should become clear to you at some point, that democracy does not suit you. You would prefer a authoritarian government based on your principles, which you will impose on others, as you cannot negotiate them. This is not what the Republican party was ever about. It is not a conservative ideal either.
It is what it is and it is not suited to politics.
I have had this sort of discussion with the unappeasable before, and it always appears at first to be a wasted effort on my part. But i often find that I opened up a glimmer of understanding.
I hope this is the case here, but it really does not matter much to me. It does matter to you. You see, principles are worthless if you don't use them. You can't eat them, and they will not keep you sheltered or warm on a cold night.
But you can establish value through negotiation, and by doing so, you can benefit greatly by having a voice in the Democracy.
If you don't, then they are virtually useless and of no value at all. You can shout them out as you draw your last breath, and nobody will remember because you never established a value for them. You held them, and you took them with you when you left. Nobody will care.
Mat 24:35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
2Ti 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
When you're all down in the dumps, please remember two things that we will be thankful for to Bush for a long time: ROBERTS and ALITO.
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