this is fun.

Quote :

"The Declaration of Independence, first of all, does not lay out any law. The Constitution decides what happens and what doesn't."

something told me you'd try to discredit the Dec. of Indep.

you:

Quote :

"but remember, you're the one arguing in favor of taking huge amounts of my money away"

me:

Quote :

"if our buying habits reside solely within the realm of self-interest, which completely works against the notion of creating an egalitarian society, maybe the governnment should be in the business of telling us how to spend SOME of our money, in the interest of creating a better union."

Quote :

" Nepalese goatherd with a life's savings of $100? He could've donated that and saved me, but he didn't. That insensitive bastard must not love equality. Sell your car and you probably could have covered the whole life-saving procedure, but you didn't."

lucky for you, medicaid still exists. we all pay taxes for it. that's why it's in place, so that if someone can't afford health care, the government helps cover the cost.

9/27/2005 2:16:14 AM

The point












Crooden's head

9/27/2005 3:32:54 AM

^^ He was saying that it medicaid shouldn't exist, which you apparently just couldn't comprehend

9/27/2005 9:16:48 AM

Quote :

"if only those tax cuts hadn't come while we were starting a fucking quagmire of a war we "libbies" might not harp on them as much"

oh, they'd still bitch. and if the shoe were on the other foot, the righties would do the same. clinton could have not gotten a blow job or been entirely honest about said things, but the republicans would have still found something else to bitch about.

9/27/2005 9:34:59 AM

a lot of what you consider "bitching" is people voicing their opinions and trying to push what they consider to be good policy. you complain about liberals pushing a liberal agenda - so what? that's the point. that's what they do.


but i will say that moveon.org in particular is all about bush-bashing no matter what and never seems to even consider the other side. i used to get emails from them but i got disgusted and removed myself from the list.

9/27/2005 12:38:19 PM

^^^ oh, i got it. the whole nepalese goatherder analogy just unnecessarily complicated the issue and i turned it on its head.

whether medicaid should exist or not is a matter of opinion. whether it fits in to a system that we all buy into through tax dollars to sustain the security and well-being of the commonwealth is just a matter of common sense.

9/28/2005 1:50:12 AM

Quote :

"he whole nepalese goatherder analogy just unnecessarily complicated the issue"

Not really. It demonstrated that the government has no great responsibility to pay my medical bills. At least, it has no more responsibility to do so than any other entity on the planet to do so.

Quote :

"whether it fits in to a system that we all buy into through tax dollars to sustain the security and well-being of the commonwealth is just a matter of common sense."

It must be incredibly convenient for you to think that.

Look, I'm not opposed to the existence of medicare/medicaid, despite the arguments I've made here -- those are just to keep you honest. However, I consider it somewhat of a peripheral benefit to living in a wealthy nation. Ergo, if something has to be cut, it belongs among the first things on the chopping block. We cut the things that fall outside of the government's basic purposes first, then work on the really big things -- namely, defense, law enforcement, and other things essential to maintaining our rights.

Admittedly, there's other things that I'd cut first. Any kind of arts subsidy leaps to mind, as do certain aspects of our agricultural policy (farm subsidies as they currently exist = t3h st00pid). At the end of the day, though, I'm not going to cry over a superfluous government handout getting cut back, even if it does contribute to the "well-being of the commonwealth."

[Edited on September 28, 2005 at 4:32 AM. Reason : ]

9/28/2005 4:31:41 AM

Eliminate Medicare and Medicaid. Make families take care of their old and decrepit grandparents, not the gov't.

Kill the weak and the feeble.

10/16/2005 7:35:17 PM

Of course, if you follow pryderi's reasoning to its logical conclusion, he is a monster for not having sold all his worldly possessions and giving every dime to sick people who can't afford treatment.

10/16/2005 9:43:35 PM

I thought you said their families could take care of them? Are you renigging on your promise?

10/16/2005 9:48:40 PM

Here's what really pisses me off about this whole argument. If you are a Republican you can sit there and bark your grand ideas of cutting the wasteful spending from the social programs yet republicans(the same ones you elected) have passed so much fucking pork barrell around is like Christmas in Spring.

Now I see on this list several programs that I agree we have no business handling. But what I don't see is the program that is costing me hundreds of dollars a month. So I have a modest proposal let's do away with everything on this list but let's add the subsudies for the Agriculture, Energy and Transportation Sector AND SOCIAL SECURITY.

10/17/2005 12:37:49 PM

Social Security was not introduced by Republicans. Many Republicans would be happy to do away with it.

That said, Republican Politicians LOVE pork. Thank God we are against Regulation and heavy Taxation, but we still have a soft spot for wasteful spending. If you ask me, it is a positive tradeoff.

Since Republicans have taken office, the regulatory burden has lightened a little bit, taxes are much lower, all it cost us was a trillion tons of pork... Fair trade, I suppose, but we'd still prefer to gain on all THREE aspects instead of justTWO!

10/17/2005 1:24:32 PM

Quote :

" regulatory burden has lightened a little bit"

Are you sure its lightened up at all, I figured its actually gone up with all the legislation that came about as a result of the corperate accounting scandals.

[Edited on October 17, 2005 at 2:37 PM. Reason : ]

10/17/2005 2:37:26 PM

Yes, that aspect has gotten worse. But I read a study compilled by the Cato Instititute that noted that while new aspect have become over-regulated, such as accounting, many others have slackened, such as castrating several environmental laws, or simply making them less invasive, which were previously being used by government agencies to create far greater societal harm, or so they argued.

Another example would be if the endangered species act is also castrated, as I heard congress was planning to do, then one avalanche of wrongs committed by government would instantly be righted... Easily swamping the marginal increase in acounting costs.

That said, it is still two steps forward three steps back.

10/17/2005 3:35:59 PM