Originally posted by AmauroteWhat are you saying? The government gave the people a work ethic? Or did they work because they saw their father's going to work after coming to the US for a better life? What really are you saying with your reference to the Great Depression? There comes a time in the market where it is just crappy. There was a 25% unemployment rate. That isn't something to be doing somersaults over but that does mean that 75% were employed. Stuff happens.
Nah, right back at you, slappy - for someone who thinks his way promotes hard work and the work ethic, you're awfully quick to leap to the defend of inequality that does the exact opposite. Why should one person of equal talent with another have a diminished access to decent education just because his father earned less than his neighbour? Not only is that ...[text shortened]... orical revisionism - didn't exactly work wonders during the Great Depression, did it, now?
So what you are saying, though, is that we should wipe out the wealth barrier. So everyone has an equal chance. We can determine whether or not people can continue in their education (although you seem to forget that there are plenty of people who are happy being factory workers, farmers, and so on but we will only consider the people who want to be educated since that is what you are focusing on) if they can pass some unbiased assessment of their abilities and as they get older we can keep testing them to see where we can put them in society.
Now how did you put it... oh yeah: That's an interesting bit of historical revisionism - didn't exactly work wonders for the USSR, did it, now?
Originally posted by AmauroteWell then when you die, don't give your children anything. Donate it all to charity. And you assume that everyone who inherits a fortune are incapable of being functional and productive members in society because they are wealthy.
Okay, I'd need Deep Blue to keep track of all the nonsequiturs in your argument, but in brief: who mentioned anything about punishment? If you really believe in a meritocracy, you believe in rewards for hard work and talent - fine, but if you really believed in that, if you really believed in free and fair competition to elicit the very best and most ...[text shortened]... opportunities and then all will be well. It simply won't do in the twenty-first society.
And I really don't care about the people you help in prison or their stories. They are in prison for a reason. "But I had it hard" yeah well everyone's life growing up is crappy. If you don't learn from it, then maybe you should kill yourself.
Originally posted by AmauroteWell then when you die, don't give your children anything. Donate it all to charity. And you assume that everyone who inherits a fortune are incapable of being functional and productive members in society because they are wealthy.
Okay, I'd need Deep Blue to keep track of all the nonsequiturs in your argument, but in brief: who mentioned anything about punishment? If you really believe in a meritocracy, you believe in rewards for hard work and talent - fine, but if you really believed in that, if you really believed in free and fair competition to elicit the very best and most ...[text shortened]... opportunities and then all will be well. It simply won't do in the twenty-first society.
And I really don't care about the people you help in prison or their stories. They are in prison for a reason. "But I had it hard" yeah well everyone's life growing up is crappy. If you don't learn from it, then maybe you should kill yourself.
Originally posted by uzlessWhat's a "welfare person"? We ship them to Mexico, that's what we do with them. It's funny everyone complains about the jobs that the Mexicans take away from people yet poor people aren't flocking to the border to get these jobs. Makes you think.
so if they never do it, then what do we as a society do with them? Because they'll have no money, no job, no home. Their kids will starve, maybe even die.
If you cut welfare off, thousands of people in each city would be on the streets 24/7. Crime would shoot way up. The city would be filthy.
Maybe we should just round 'em all up and put them in ...[text shortened]... ompany and a welfare person came in for an interview, would you give them the job? Ya right.
Originally posted by uzlessMy dad's addicted to crack and he is on welfare. I would have no problem with him coming up missing.
I like how you overstate how many "crackheads" make up the total amount of welfare cases.
Go down to your local welfare office and count how many "Crackheads" are there. You will be suprised, or should I say dissappointed.
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Originally posted by slappy115I'm not sure what you find so complicated - couldn't have been simpler, really, it was a straight rebuttal of your argument that "it all boils down to the individual." Progressively worsening trade cycles in the nineteenth century and our own carefully state-regulated capitalist edifice now are an obvious disproof of the power of the individual in the marketplace, because the Great Depression was not resolved by the policies of Herbert Hoover.
What are you saying? The government gave the people a work ethic? Or did they work because they saw their father's going to work after coming to the US for a better life? What really are you saying with your reference to the Great Depression? There comes a time in the market where it is just crappy. There was a 25% unemployment rate. That isn't somet sting bit of historical revisionism - didn't exactly work wonders for the USSR, did it, now?
So what you are saying, though, is that we should wipe out the wealth barrier. So everyone has an equal chance. We can determine whether or not people can continue in their education if they can pass some unbiased assessment of their abilities and as they get older we can keep testing them to see where we can put them in society.
I agree with nearly everything about that paragraph except the last part and the implication of the state as arbiter. As for your denunciation of equality of opportunity as synonymous with equality of outcome, I think that merely demonstrates how extreme, reductive and impractical your own position is.
Originally posted by slappy115No I didn't - once again, you're imagining things. In any event, a society based on equality of opportunity will enable the people you are talking about to flourish and realize their full productive capacity - just why are you so unsure of yourself that you feel they need the extra safety blanket of a head start?
And you assume that everyone who inherits a fortune are incapable of being functional and productive members in society because they are wealthy.
Originally posted by AmauroteOkay I'm done playing around.
I'm not sure what you find so complicated - couldn't have been simpler, really, it was a straight rebuttal of your argument that "it all boils down to the individual." Progressively worsening trade cycles in the nineteenth century and our own carefully state-regulated capitalist edifice now are an obvious disproof of the power of the individual in the marke ...[text shortened]... think that merely demonstrates how extreme, reductive and impractical your own position is.
An individual has practically no power in the marketplace yet you put all the blame of the Great Depression on Hoover. "the Great Depression was not resolved by the policies of Herbert Hoover."
As for state-regulated capitalism, Reagan relaxed the government's control and low and behold, the US came out of a recession.
Capitalism must be carefully regulated by the state. However, capitalism worked fine before the government started to try and regulate the market. This would be especially true during the period right before and after WWI.
Now in the US, the US government gives out a ton of money in the form of grants for education. This is how I managed to afford college. Although you may not go to the greatest school, like an Ivy League school, you can still go and become educated. There is one stipulation. You must maintain a 2.0 QPA to receive federal and state financial aid over a one year (two semester) period, otherwise it is revoked. So what's not fair with that? Only poor people, like me, can receive the maximum financial aid (loans are also available for people who don't "meet" the requirement). Therefore, it bars people who may have the same ability as me but whose parents can afford college but choose not to pay for it. Where is the equality in that?
The state must be the arbiter if they are finding it. Who else will do it?
Originally posted by AmauroteHey, guess what? Your little utopia aint gonna happen. Here is why:
No I didn't - once again, you're imagining things. In any event, a society based on equality of opportunity will enable the people you are talking about to flourish and realize their full productive capacity - just why are you so unsure of yourself that you feel they need the extra safety blanket of a head start?
LIFE ISN'T FAIR. I'll repeat that. LIFE ISN'T FAIR.
I'm not unsure of myself. I explained everything about financial aid and education in the post above, hopefully above. While doing my undergraduate work, we used to joke every semester about the "new crop" that would come in. They were given the head start which you speak of and the next semester, on 10% of them remained. Boy, that was tax money well spent. This is for education.
People cram education down your throat. Yet, there are people who just shouldn't go to college. Like I said in an earlier post, there are people who are happy being a factory worker or a farmer. Do you know what job I enjoy the most and if I had found this before I went to college I would have had a career? I am a great dish washer. It gives you time to think and it is physcially demanding.
Your assumption that people aren't given a chance to realize their full potential is just BS. If you want to go on to further your education, despite your financial status, you can. If you want to work in a factory, you can. If you want to be a lowly dish washer, you can. There are plenty of job opportunities out there. If you have ever heard someone say, "I don't want to do that because I think I would hate it.", then you are talking to someone who will never find their place in society.
Remember: you can give anyone a head start, some people just run faster than others.
Last thought, just curious: If you could only give money either to a single mother of two or a starving chemist, who would you give it to?
Originally posted by slappy115Also include: all illegal aliens must join the Army for two years and do a combat tour in Iraq or Afghanistan if they want amnesty; then they can work on citizenship...just think, between 10-15 million soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan...problem solved!
I finally came up with a solution to welfare today. If you want to go on welfare, you can. You can do it for the rest of your life if you want. However, if you are going to relie on the state, then the state, in a sense, controls you; and since you are not paying taxes (you ARE on welfare after all), all you have to do is forfeit your right to vote.
...[text shortened]... could go on with this for a while but I would like to see anyone else's opinions on this.
Originally posted by chancremechanicYeah that's true.
Also include: all illegal aliens must join the Army for two years and do a combat tour in Iraq or Afghanistan if they want amnesty; then they can work on citizenship...just think, between 10-15 million soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan...problem solved!
Originally posted by WulebgrAnd some people type because they enjoy hearing their voice in the head too. What's your point?
That's true. Some folks type all day and never say anything worthwhile, while others communicate only to effect (and need not repeat themselves), for example.
Really, I don't type all day. I only do it to unwind. And really life must be unfair if you are typing alone on the computer on a Friday night. Oh course, if I was digging up old forums all the time too, I guess I really won't have time to do anything else.
BTW, I accomplished my evening goals if you want to know why I'm on.
Originally posted by slappy115No, I said the policies of Herbert Hoover, not Herbert Hoover - honestly, I can see you feel more comfortable with stereotypes and binary oppositions, but you're going to have to do a lot better than that. On the subject of Reagan (which has nothing to do with the policies of Hoover, since Reagan couldn't balance a budget if his Reich endured for a thousand years), if you really believe in the miracle economy of the record deficit years which turned the US into a debtor state (in another words, a welfare recipient of the global savings pool - which, incidentally, draws primarily from nations whose populations have starved in our lifetime, which is a particularly disgusting comment on liberal capitalism which decent hard-working folk would do well to note), the GE propaganda man really did his propaganda work well, because you're going to be picking up his tab with the rest of America for the next half-century.
Okay I'm done playing around.
An individual has practically no power in the marketplace yet you put all the blame of the Great Depression on Hoover. "the Great Depression was not resolved by the policies of Herbert Hoover."
As for state-regulated capitalism, Reagan relaxed the government's control and low and behold, the US came out of a recession. ...[text shortened]... in that?
The state must be the arbiter if they are finding it. Who else will do it?
Capitalism must be carefully regulated by the state. However, capitalism worked fine before the government started to try and regulate the market.
Worked fine for who? You'll have to define your terms of reference before anyone can respond to a point as questionable as that. The belle epoque years were so bad for workers that the innenpolitik school of historiography sprang up to seriously advance the proposition that the Entente and Central powers went to war to prevent social revolution. Hardly a vote of confidence in your wonderful (and notional, since all these governments were regulating before WWI anyway) Arcadian era of capitalism.
Now in the US, the US government gives out a ton of money in the form of grants for education. This is how I managed to afford college. Although you may not go to the greatest school, like an Ivy League school, you can still go and become educated. There is one stipulation. You must maintain a 2.0 QPA to receive federal and state financial aid over a one year (two semester) period, otherwise it is revoked. So what's not fair with that? Only poor people, like me, can receive the maximum financial aid (loans are also available for people who don't "meet" the requirement). Therefore, it bars people who may have the same ability as me but whose parents can afford college but choose not to pay for it. Where is the equality in that?
The state must be the arbiter if they are finding it. Who else will do it?
Firstly, I note the irony of a pro-Reaganite (Reagan seriously curtailed grants for poor kids, of course, and the Pell-Grant only covers 15% of total costs at best) lauding grants for the poor in education; secondly, I'm glad that you support grants for the poor (even if loans have been replacing them nationwide), but in that case why are you also supporting grants for the rich in the form of inherited wealth? If you want those poor kids to reach that average, why not ensure they have as near as possible the same environment of prosperity and educational access (notably books) that the middle-class kids grow up in?
As for the state as arbiter, again, that places the presumption on short-term testing, which is a condition I don't agree with (are those rich kids going to be pulled out after one year if their grade-point average falls? Didn't think so) - if the state hasn't the patience to invest in the future, it isn't going to achieve any kind of return at all on its productive talent. As usual, it'll be working-class talent that is wasted extravagantly in the lazy-ass name of capitalist "efficiency".
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Originally posted by slappy115The comical thing here is that I agree with you: life is very unfair indeed. However, I believe that society can work collectively to overcome its problems. In contrast, you support the proposition of the bone-idle inheriting the world while the strong go to the wall - if anyone here is utopian, it's you.
Hey, guess what? Your little utopia aint gonna happen. Here is why:
LIFE ISN'T FAIR. I'll repeat that. LIFE ISN'T FAIR.
Your assumption that people aren't given a chance to realize their full potential is just BS. If you want to go on to further your education, despite your financial status, you can.
If you really believe this, for all your talk you haven't experienced nearly enough poverty to understand it.