Two cultures: Hunters and Gatherers vs Free Stuff

[bripat9643]

I said earlier in this topic that it is the government's job to keep the pathways to success open.

Wrong. That isn't the government's job. Where does the Constitution mention "keep the pathways to success open?"

 

[bripat9643]

Be honest: you make your living sucking off the tax payers, don't you?

What I have shown is that today we have far, far less poverty, virtually no child labor, and far less frequent and much shorter recessions than the imaginary la-la land of utopia the two Forbes' crackheads conjured up in their delerious imaginations.

So the federal government must be doing something right.

I can take all kinds of potshots at all the stupid and evil shit the government does, and often do. But it also has gotten some things right, and reducing human misery is one of them.

 

[JDzBrain]

Actually I'll gently argue with you on this one. I don't think anybody wants anybody to be deprived of shelter, food, potable water, clothing, necessary medical attention, etc. etc. etc. In fact I think those of us most opposed to people demanding that others provide them with these things are actually the most generous out of their own pockets to provide it.

While I do appreciate the "gentle" nature of you argument Fox, I think you may have missed my point. Poor...is a description of status or position...NOT a condition. You can recover from poor. You can NOT recover from blindness!

Our so called social safety net, as Social Security has often been described, was and is intended to lessen the burden and preserve the quality of life for the old and infirm when they could NO LONGER WORK!

That is NOT what it is any more. The average life expectancy has gone up by 20 years. If you are a freakin' drunk you can claim habitual disability and get benefits, and on and on and on. Same thing with welfare. These systems have been bastardized by politicians whose ONLY intention is to increase their voting base to include huge groups of people who DO NOT NEED OR DESERVE OUR HELP!

The words poor and poverty have become the battle cry for progressives to illicit an emotional response from the gullible who don't know they are being played as pawns in the class warfare game.

Just like G's IDIOCY with the poverty level he posted.

Just post a bunch of dates and percentages...and I'd say in a disingenuous attempt to lay claim to the improvement for progressives, but I don't think he has a CLUE how to understand historical data. So giving him the benefit of the doubt, I WILL point out that he makes NO mention of the fact that until 1920's, 60% of people lived an agrarian life and weren't poor. They just grew their own.

Or that the industrial revolution started to kick in around 1900 and until the 1920's...only about 40% of the population actually worked at a public job.

Or that the work force, which went over 50% for the first time ever in our history entering into war production in the most industrialized society on the planet to supply war goods for 6 wars starting in 1908 and continuing till today just MIGHT have something to do with a HUGE jump in personal wealth.

He also wouldn't mention the fact in all his nonsense that since the 1930's and the progressive hero, FDR the percentage of wealth controlled by the top 1% has gone from about 12% of this countries total wealth to the 50% it is now under the progressive policies of this out of control government.

Of course, adding historical perspective to historical data IS such a heartless act by me that I MUST be a conservative son of a bitch!

They didn't have penicillin, electricity or television either, dipstick. Was that because welfare didn't exist?

Government programs don't improve our standard of living. They never have.

EXACTLY...not to mention that not ONE of those things came into our life because of the freakin' government. ALL...privately funded discoveries!

I'm sorry...but where in the Constitution does it say that Political Message Board posters get to decide the scope of the Constitution?

Uh...the 10th Amendment, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Where in the liberal mind does it say that they should post crap about the Constitution when they haven't READ IT!

Folks...all this nonsensical CRAP about the evil 1%, taxes and the goodness of wealth redistribution is a fallacy. If we took EVERY DIME made by the top 1% last year and applied it to the national debt, instead of every man woman and child owing 468,750 dollars as we do RIGHT NOW...that amount would drop to 428,125 dollars.

That's SWEET ain't it? We could have our government STEAL every dime from everyone who makes over 385 grand a year and knock 40 grand of the amount your INFANT CHILD OWES thanks to benevolence of progressive politicians and their concern for the poor and "disadvantaged"!

How about a little concern for the future...MORONS!!!

 

[chanel]

Excellent thread. I agree with all of foxfyre's points but would like to add an often overlooked variable: the breakdown of the family. Once single motherhood became socially acceptable, it soon became the norm in many communities. By martyrizing young women who have children out of wedlock, it not only gives deadbeat dads a pass, it denies them an important purpose in life. The govt has taken the provider's role, which leaves a number of men stuck in perpetual adolescence and lacking purpose. Fatherhood should be a "right" as well and should be encouraged by anyone who claims to be concerned for the "poor". Esp. the children.

 

[Sallow]

I don't buy unsupported Libertarian tripe such as that opinion piece.

America of the 19th century was rife with poverty, child labor, roving bands of street urchins and orphans, and repeated financial depressions and panics throwing millions out of work and into the streets time and time again. It was not the comman man's paradise these two would have you believe.

America before people started getting "free stuff"

Notice how people are suffering like poor people are supposed to

Who says they are suffering, other than you? Google 'sod house' and look how people lived on the Plains, happy to have a place of their own and the OPPORTUNITY to better themselves. They didn't consider that suffering.

There was a time in my life that I lived in a tent and worked day labor to feed myself, but I wasn't 'suffering'. I was doing what I had to do to survive the vicissitudes of life, and working for the GOAL of self-improvement. I certainly wasn't running to the government to give me money, food stamps and a Section 8 voucher.

I think the problem with a lot of you libs these days is you have NO IDEA what REAL suffering is, and the ideas of hard work and self-sacrifice are simply foreign to you. It's sad, really....

 

[Sallow]

Classical liberals yes, i.e. libertarian in its purest form. They were not the social liberals of modern times that neither recognize nor respect anybody's unalienable rights. The Founders did not believe anybody was entitled to anybody else's stuff.

Classical Liberal is a made up term conservatives use to identify themselves with the founders. And it basically means that "Liberalism" began and stopped in the 18th Century.

But it would also include:
-Blacks are 3/5 a person.
-Slavery is okay.
-Women do not have the right to vote.
-White Christian Male Landed Gentry should be the only folks with any power.

Good luck with that.

Good lord, some of you people are obsessed with creating straw men and red herrings, but assuming that the topic is about any of that, please continue and explain why any of that obligates you to provide me with free stuff.

Could we focus on that component of the topic please?

What "red herrings and straw men"? Oh yeah..the "free stuff" thing. That is a red herring and a straw man.

 

[editec]

You want to know what America was like BEFORE progressivism changed the social contract?

Here's a report to CONGRESS that clarifies just how fucked up this nation was and how screwed up it is going to once again become if we continue to allow this myth the LIARS are calling FREE MARKET ECONOMICS to dominate our society.

This is the 1917 WALSH COMMISSION report on industrial relations, kiddies.

It is the information found in this report upon which the progressive movement was largely founded.



Full text of "Industrial relations : final report and testimony submitted to Congress by the Commission on Industrial Relations created by the act of August 23, 1912"

Now I doubt many of you will read it in its entirety.

But some of you might actually learn some real economic and social history by checking it out.

 

[The T]

I love your thread.

January 11, 1944 FDR assigned various 'rights' to Americans.

Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.

But, these are hardly rights.
Rights are God-given, and require no one else to participate in their assignment. Speech is a right.

Entitlements require that someone provide same, and, most often, that others be deprived of something in order to provide the entitlement.
The huge tax burden necessary to provide the ‘rights’ and fund federal welfare programs can be laid at the feet of the New Deal. Before 1940, only 5% of Americans paid any income tax, and the maximum was 25%. By the end of WWII, 2/3 of American families paid income tax- and it started at 24%, with a $500 exemption.

a. It went up to 94% over $200k. So, if one earned $300k, one kept only $6000 of the last $100k.

b. Withholding was re-introduced so the government got the money immediately. (Had been repealed in 1916.)

The attitude of the FDR government can be seen in these words of A.B. “Happy” Chandler, a former Kentucky governor:
“[A]ll of us owe the government; we owe it for everything we have—and that is the basis of obligation—and the government can take everything we have if the government needs it. . . . The government can assert its right to have all the taxes it needs for any purpose, either now or at any time in the future.”
From "FDR Goes To War," by Burton and Anita Folsom

FDR never proposed that those rights be given to every American for free but that every American has a right to expect to be able to obtain those necessities in life. When our society has reached a level where those basic rights are no longer obtainable by our citizens we need to reasses our priorities

This is a valid observation. I haven't checked so I don't know whether FDR saw these as fundamental rights to which every American could aspire to or whether he saw them as fundamental rights to which every American was entitled whether he or she could afford them or not. But the answer to that is absolutely what I am shooting for in this thread.

So that brings us to your next comment as to them no longer obtainable by our citizens. Have we reached that point? Is the American dream--the idea that all citizens can EARN a piece of the pie--dead? If so, that would suggest that American exceptionalism no longer exists and the great experiment of the Founders has failed. And we have no choice but to accept continued decline until we are no better than any other struggling, stagnant country.

So what should our priorities be? To figure out how to give people more free stuff until the well runs so dry we don't have any more stuff to give?

Or to promote values and a mindset that begins weaning people off the free stuff and redevelops the hunter/gatherer society of the mid twentieth century?

Freedom to live our lives as we see fit without encroaching on the liberty of others and not using the power of imperial Government to right perceived wrongs when you fail at exercising your liberty.

 

[Sallow]

You want to know what America was like BEFORE progressivism changed the social contract?

Here's a report to CONGRESS that clarifies just how fucked up this nation was and how screwed up it is going to once again become if we continue to allow this myth the LIARS are calling FREE MARKET ECONOMICS to dominate our society.

This is the 1917 WALSH COMMISSION report on industrial relations, kiddies.

It is the information found in this report upon which the progressive movement was largely founded.



Full text of "Industrial relations : final report and testimony submitted to Congress by the Commission on Industrial Relations created by the act of August 23, 1912"

Now I doubt many of you will read it in its entirety.

But some of you might actually learn some real economic and social history by checking it out.

Many people don't get the fact the the middle class are wholly a result of FDR's policies. Prior to FDR..there was no middle class in this country. There were very rich and very poor people.

 

[WillowTree]

You want to know what America was like BEFORE progressivism changed the social contract?

Here's a report to CONGRESS that clarifies just how fucked up this nation was and how screwed up it is going to once again become if we continue to allow this myth the LIARS are calling FREE MARKET ECONOMICS to dominate our society.

This is the 1917 WALSH COMMISSION report on industrial relations, kiddies.

It is the information found in this report upon which the progressive movement was largely founded.



Full text of "Industrial relations : final report and testimony submitted to Congress by the Commission on Industrial Relations created by the act of August 23, 1912"

Now I doubt many of you will read it in its entirety.

But some of you might actually learn some real economic and social history by checking it out.

Many people don't get the fact the the middle class are wholly a result of FDR's policies. Prior to FDR..there was no middle class in this country. There were very rich and very poor people.

wrong.. The middle class came to be after world war two. All the GI's came home got an education or rolled up their sleeves and went to work. If you've never read "The Greatest Generation" by Tom Brokaw,, you should.

 

[Sallow]

FDR never proposed that those rights be given to every American for free but that every American has a right to expect to be able to obtain those necessities in life. When our society has reached a level where those basic rights are no longer obtainable by our citizens we need to reasses our priorities

This is a valid observation. I haven't checked so I don't know whether FDR saw these as fundamental rights to which every American could aspire to or whether he saw them as fundamental rights to which every American was entitled whether he or she could afford them or not. But the answer to that is absolutely what I am shooting for in this thread.

So that brings us to your next comment as to them no longer obtainable by our citizens. Have we reached that point? Is the American dream--the idea that all citizens can EARN a piece of the pie--dead? If so, that would suggest that American exceptionalism no longer exists and the great experiment of the Founders has failed. And we have no choice but to accept continued decline until we are no better than any other struggling, stagnant country.

So what should our priorities be? To figure out how to give people more free stuff until the well runs so dry we don't have any more stuff to give?

Or to promote values and a mindset that begins weaning people off the free stuff and redevelops the hunter/gatherer society of the mid twentieth century?

Freedom to live our lives as we see fit without encroaching on the liberty of others and not using the power of imperial Government to right perceived wrongs when you fail at exercising your liberty.

The North won the civil war and set the slaves free. Sucks to be you..don't it.

 

[uscitizen]

Capitalism started it all with it's "you deserve" advertising themes.

The pertinent part of your post might reflect on one of the dynamics of how we became two distinct cultures. (Which I am no longer as concerned about how we got here but rather how we best become one cohesive culture again.)

But unless that capitalist ad suggests that you, Citizen A, are obligated to buy the new car or a great vacation or an expensive camera or whatever for Citizen B because he 'deserves' it, your argument won't hold up in the debate.

You missed my point.
Debt is a problem right? both govt and personal?
We have become a society whose self esteem dependns on posessions that we buy those new cars and vacations whether we can afford them or not.

Debts must be paid and now they are due.

 

[Sallow]

You want to know what America was like BEFORE progressivism changed the social contract?

Here's a report to CONGRESS that clarifies just how fucked up this nation was and how screwed up it is going to once again become if we continue to allow this myth the LIARS are calling FREE MARKET ECONOMICS to dominate our society.

This is the 1917 WALSH COMMISSION report on industrial relations, kiddies.

It is the information found in this report upon which the progressive movement was largely founded.



Full text of "Industrial relations : final report and testimony submitted to Congress by the Commission on Industrial Relations created by the act of August 23, 1912"

Now I doubt many of you will read it in its entirety.

But some of you might actually learn some real economic and social history by checking it out.

Many people don't get the fact the the middle class are wholly a result of FDR's policies. Prior to FDR..there was no middle class in this country. There were very rich and very poor people.

wrong.. The middle class came to be after world war two. All the GI's came home got an education or rolled up their sleeves and went to work. If you've never read "The Greatest Generation" by Tom Brokaw,, you should.

As a result of FDR's policies.

GI's came back..rolled up their sleeves and went to college because of FDR's GI Bill. That began the middle class.

You are wrong.

As always.

G.I. Bill - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Read all about it.

 

[percysunshine]

Poll check update: 47 voters, 36 moocher votes, 41 'none of the above' votes.

So there are 6 moochers voting for 6 options.

6/47 = .128 or about 13% of USMB posters.

There is hope left in the universe.

 

[The T]

This is a valid observation. I haven't checked so I don't know whether FDR saw these as fundamental rights to which every American could aspire to or whether he saw them as fundamental rights to which every American was entitled whether he or she could afford them or not. But the answer to that is absolutely what I am shooting for in this thread.

So that brings us to your next comment as to them no longer obtainable by our citizens. Have we reached that point? Is the American dream--the idea that all citizens can EARN a piece of the pie--dead? If so, that would suggest that American exceptionalism no longer exists and the great experiment of the Founders has failed. And we have no choice but to accept continued decline until we are no better than any other struggling, stagnant country.

So what should our priorities be? To figure out how to give people more free stuff until the well runs so dry we don't have any more stuff to give?

Or to promote values and a mindset that begins weaning people off the free stuff and redevelops the hunter/gatherer society of the mid twentieth century?

Freedom to live our lives as we see fit without encroaching on the liberty of others and not using the power of imperial Government to right perceived wrongs when you fail at exercising your liberty.

The North won the civil war and set the slaves free. Sucks to be you..don't it.

As usual? You miss the point. You think just because the Confederates lost gives government right to run roughshod over liberty of the individual? Really?

Sorry son. You lose.

 

[rightwinger]

I said earlier in this topic that it is the government's job to keep the pathways to success open.

Wrong. That isn't the government's job. Where does the Constitution mention "keep the pathways to success open?"

General welfare clause

 

[The T]

I said earlier in this topic that it is the government's job to keep the pathways to success open.

Wrong. That isn't the government's job. Where does the Constitution mention "keep the pathways to success open?"

General welfare clause

Prove your premise. The general welfare clause doesn't mean what you portend it does.

 

[bripat9643]

I said earlier in this topic that it is the government's job to keep the pathways to success open.

Wrong. That isn't the government's job. Where does the Constitution mention "keep the pathways to success open?"

General welfare clause

ROFL! Liberals think that justifies whatever Nazi Pelosi would like to do, including putting conservatives in concentration camps.

 

[bripat9643]

Many people don't get the fact the the middle class are wholly a result of FDR's policies. Prior to FDR..there was no middle class in this country. There were very rich and very poor people.

They don't "get it" because it isn't true. We've always had a middle class. It has bee growing steadily ever since the beginning of the industrial revolution. That is what created the middle class, not some worthless politician. All sending everyone to college did is cheapen the value of a college degree. Now instead of a high school diploma to get most jobs you needed a college diploma.

 

[Sallow]

Many people don't get the fact the the middle class are wholly a result of FDR's policies. Prior to FDR..there was no middle class in this country. There were very rich and very poor people.

They don't "get it" because it isn't true. We've always had a middle class. It has bee growing steadily ever since the beginning of the industrial revolution. That is what created the middle class, not some worthless politician. All sending everyone to college did is cheapen the value of a college degree. Now instead of a high school diploma to get most jobs you needed a college diploma.

That's incorrect.

There was never a middle class in this country until 1950. And the reason people need college degrees isn't because they have been cheapened. It's because the world became more complex.