Whooo-wheee, Whittle hits it out of the park again! Thanks for sharing RHT447!
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After viewing this I sent a sternly worded letter to the current occupants of the White House.
Must listen interview of VDH — http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/2012/11/20/interview-vdh/
What happened to Gate, did he finally commit suicide.
He has had only two posts since Americans told him and his friends to take a leap.
Now all we need is for PostScript to go silent.
Maybe you guys should take a hint from that looney, and jump off the same cliff as he did, the conspiracy clif.
Ha! Ha!
Thanks for sharing your wisdom with us Randy, the last thing this country needs is free speech or people like Tina and myself who still believe in our Constitution, right? Times have changed, you won, communist-lite is the road to prosperity and the fulfillment of all your little man dreams.
So don’t just sit there, go for it, you’ve got the all the power now! Start redistributing the wealth. Tear down the rich so you can build up the poor. Tax the Hell out of everyone! Kill evil corporations and impower those unions! Silence the opposition, boot em off the air! Provide free medical for all, free college education for all, spend, spend, spend…
And when the dust has settled over the huge garbage dump once called America and the leaders of your cause have fled to greener pastures, the little people like you will be left behind, and then you will have us staring you in face and we’re going to be very, very angry.
Randy your wish will go unfulfilled (nobody, including Gate, is jumping off a cliff) but cheer up…your own ignorance has ruled the day. You should be celebrating instead of concerning yourself with death wishes.
Jack is right about what you have to look forward to in that utopian world where the rich pay their fair share…do you have any idea what that means by the way? Its really an open concept. For all we know it means anyone that isn’t on welfare. Oh, I know the administration gave a figure of $200-$250K but the left has never bothered to be hamstrung by such proposals. We were told our healthcare would cost less; the price has gone up. We were told we could keep our insurance and doctor; both have proven to be impossible for many people. We were told everyone would be covered under Obamacare but according to CBO there are still millions uninsured:
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/cbo-obamacare-will-leave-30-million-uninsured
Now Nancy Pelosi admits they might have to re-address issues with Obamacare. Her solutions will make matters worse if her track record is any indication.
Socialists don’t write policy to serve human beings; they write policy in terms of units. Socialism is cold, calculating, and ultimately a disaster because human beings can think and are likely to change the way they manage their lives when threatened. Human beings don’t appreciate being targeted and managed like cattle…robbed of what they have worked hard to create and build. Most human beings enjoy sharing and giving; they resent being forced and manipulated into giving. Human beings perform when they have incentive to do so; they retract when confronted with oppressive barriers and restraint. Human beings also admire achievement, creativity, innovation. These exist not only in big think tank or R&D operations but also in classrooms, neighborhoods, and individual lives…creativity, innovation, and achievement wither and die when central planners gain too much power and begin to blunt the human spirit.
You have a nice day, Randy.
Re “Randy”: Now all we need is for PostScript to go silent.
Even after his apparent win Randall Stone is still afraid of something as basic as freedom of speech. I can understand that need. I suppose it might interfere with his family’s working government and political mudslinging to enrich and empower themselves.
Ugh. Hearing him poo-poo the concerns of the poor was despicable and dishonest. Yes, everyone has equal access to emergency care. But if Mitt Romney gets hit by a bus, he can pay his hospital bill. A minimum-wage worker with no health insurance can’t. He will spend the rest of his life paying for this accident. And he says poor people get the same treatments as rich people? On what planet? Whittle’s argument is ridiculous. Poor people can’t complain because we have air conditioners? That Marie Antoinette-ish line of argument is debunked here:
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009093711/heritage-foundation-blames-poverty-air-conditioning
“In just a few moments of online searching, I found a 1968 advertisement for air conditioners that ran in the St. Petersburg Times. The ad highlights a 6,000 BTU air conditioner (the type of unit that would cool a medium-sized room) on sale for $118.
Today, a 6,000-BTU air conditioner sells for $169 at Best Buy and $179 at Kmart. But smart shoppers know that air conditioners of roughly that size can be had for as little as $99 during peak sales season for air conditioners. But smart shoppers also know that $118 in 1968 is the equivalent of $722.92 today. (You can use the CPI calculator at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve to run the numbers yourself.) In other words, while the consumer price index has increased 612 percent since 1968, the cost of an air conditioner, in 1968 dollars, is literally about one-sixth of what it was when, as Rector notes, “only 36 percent of the public enjoyed air conditioning.”
Rector doesn’t say, by the way, how many of these air-conditioned people in poverty have air conditioners as a result of renting apartments that are equipped with them, have hand-me-downs from a friend or second-hand store, or have 20-year-old units that should have been replaced years ago.
But there’s at least one parable in this that Rector misses, and lies at the heart of an economy that is failing to sustain a decent standard of living for too many of its people.
Back in 1968, U.S. workers made most of the air conditioners and other appliances that were flowing into the consumer economy. Today, all of the consumer brands you see at the major home improvement and department stores are made overseas. That’s a small example of a well-documented trend throughout our economy. We get cheap consumer goods, but at the cost of a lost industrial base that is able to employ people and provide a path out of poverty to self-sufficiency. Back in 1970, there were 17.8 million manufacturing jobs. That number fell to 17.3 million in 2000 and has plummeted since, to 13.4 million in 2008.”
“But if Mitt Romney gets hit by a bus, he can pay his hospital bill.”
Imagine that…life isn’t fair! He’s also been known to pay for the hospital bills of others. He also worked hard to be able to pay his hospital bill.
“A minimum-wage worker with no health insurance can’t. He will spend the rest of his life paying for this accident.”
He could get insurance if he was willing to buy catastrophic insurance with a very high deductible. He might have to arrange his life so he could afford it but it depends on what’s important. At your ageas long as you aren’t reckless, the probability of being hit by a bus or needing major heart surgery is quite low. Most people are willing to take the risk. High deductible insurance might be less expensive if more people were willing to buy it.
“And he says poor people get the same treatments as rich people?”
Chris if you got hit by a bus you would get the same basic treatment as Mitt Romney. Quit whining!
“Poor people can’t complain because we have air conditioners?”
Poor people with air conditioners acting as if they were starving children with bloated bellies and flies crawling all over them is ridiculous!
Poor people (you, lets face it) can complain all you want but you look really stupid acting as if your life in America is, in any possible way, comparable to the truly poor people around the world. That is the point Mr. Whittle was making. Surely somewhere in that brain of yours there is room for a little humility…you are rich just because you live in America. You have no appreciation for how well off you are…or for the tremendous opportunity you have because you live in America…geesh!
“Blah blah blah…air conditioners…blah blah”
http://www2.census.gov/prod2/popscan/p60-063.pdf
In 1968 the median household income was $8630 per year. A lot of things were different in 1968.
“Back in 1970, there were 17.8 million manufacturing jobs. That number fell to 17.3 million in 2000 and has plummeted since, to 13.4 million in 2008.”
Guess what the biggest economic change has been in America since 1968?
Mr. Romney was better qualified to fix the problems that plague the American economy because he knows the answers as well as the questions.
Mr. Obama, I fear, is proving that he just doesn’t give a rats a**. Welcome to the brave new world of trickle down poverty.
Only have time to reply to one thing right now:
“Guess what the biggest economic change has been in America since 1968?”
The minimum wage has fallen by three dollars.
Yes, I’m serious. That is the most important economic change since 1968. When workers make less, they spend less. Demand goes down, and the economy crumbles. Low wages aren’t good for anybody, Tina.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-16/u-s-minimum-wage-lower-than-in-lbj-era-needs-a-raise.html
Like I said Chris, until you have a better understanding of how things work there’s really no point in discussing economic policy.
Fine, let’s talk about something else. I just watched the end of the video. Whittle actually says that, if he were president, he would consider it a better outcome if 14 Navy Seals had died along with the four Americans who were killed in Benghazi. And people are actually applauding this? Why? He’s literally arguing against weighing the costs and benefits of an action before taking it, saying that we should have sent troops in even if it would have gotten them all killed and saved no one. Mindless.
I didn’t think it could get any dumber, but then at the very end he says that we have the second amendment because…James Bond? That would make sense if James Bond was a) an American, b) a citizen rather than a government agent, and c) not fictional.
And this is one of your movement’s guiding lights? Wow. I do have to wonder if Whittle’s central thesis is correct, and conservatives really don’t believe the things they say.
In case anyone else who may be reading this is interested in the answer to my question for Chris it is the Medicare program and the Welfare programs since 1965 which together with all of the other social programs add up to the largest expense in the US budget. And they are greatest contributor to continuing deficit spending (spending more than you take in in a given year) which is how all of that debt piles up.
See pie chart here for 2013:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_budget_pie_chart
Health care, welfare and pensions make up 12%, 18%, and 17% of the budget(47% total)…but food stamps are part of the farm subsidy program so that’s a portion of “other” spending so the percentage is higher. Government has all kinds of programs like that that were tied (hidden) to bills that have nothing to do with social spending.
Another chart here:
http://www.supportingevidence.com/Government/fed_budget_over_time.html
Shows how the federal budget has gone up since 1960.
Heritage explains how 70% of the budget is now spent on dependence programs (most did not exist in 1960.
Until Chris and her ilk are willing to acknowledge the unsustainable quality built in to these programs there is no way to discuss the best way to reform the programs so that the very needy are protected, so that people that have paid in to a program can rely on promises made to them decades ago while at the same time better systems can be designed to serve younger Americans. We need to have an honest conversation about our problems but it isn’t possible when reformers are accused of wanting to harm people or of being motivated by greed.
Young people are counting on us to fix this.
Chris: “Whittle actually says that, if he were president, he would consider it a better outcome if 14 Navy Seals had died along with the four Americans who were killed in Benghazi.”
No Chris, that is not what he said.
Apparently you can’t grasp the concept of power through strength that need not be used…or if needed, quickly dispels notions of weakness.
If you bang your head against a cabinet and break the skin causing a big bruise do you bang it again and again or has the cabinet taught you something?
It’s the same with gravity (hot stoves, hammers)…they don’t care about your feelings, whining or excuses, they just teach you not to do “that” again!
Savy? Or is there no point in discussing this either?
You have a peaceful day.
Tina: “In case anyone else who may be reading this is interested in the answer to my question for Chris it is the Medicare program and the Welfare programs since 1965 which together with all of the other social programs add up to the largest expense in the US budget.”
I knew you’d say this, but it doesn’t make any sense. People en masse didn’t suddenly decide they’d rather get a pittance from welfare programs rather than work to earn a living wage. Medicare and welfare programs did not cause employers to pay their workers less, and the debt has absolutely nothing to do with corporations choosing to outsource manufacturing jobs.
You’re still acting as if social welfare programs create the need for themselves. That’s just not true. The reason these programs have become unsustainable is because people are being forced onto them by lack of jobs and low wages.
Did you know that 80% of Wal-Mart employees are on some form of public assistance?
http://www.heraldsun.com/view/full_story/14559628/article-Let-s-kick-Wal-Mart-off-welfare
Wal-Mart is the largest corporation in the world. Ask yourself, Tina: Why is Wal-Mart expecting you to pick up the tab for their employees? Is that conservative to you?
Put the blame where it belongs. The only reason people get stuck on welfare programs is because there aren’t enough well-paying jobs. Cutting people off of welfare will do nothing to solve this problem. I am all for reform, but I don’t see how this can be done until the majority of welfare recipients who either work or want to work have realistic options.
“Until Chris and her ilk”
Her?
“We need to have an honest conversation about our problems but it isn’t possible when reformers are accused of wanting to harm people or of being motivated by greed.”
That’s because most of the reformers you are referring to are not looking at the real source of the problem. When you say we need to cut welfare and we need more jobs, but you don’t want to do anything about wages or outsourcing, then yes, it does look like you’re just looking out for corporate interests rather than what’s best for the poor.
This is especially true when prominent conservatives like Bill Whittle get up on stage to tell wealthy politicians and donors that the poor actually have it pretty good in this country. It makes you look bad when your party’s nominee for president gets caught on tape telling his wealthy donors how lazy and irresponsible poor people are. It makes you look bad when Andrea Tantaros jokes about using food stamps as a diet plan, or when Sean Hannity tells poor people to go off of food stamps because “you can survive on rice and beans.” It makes you look bad when Rush Limbaugh tells poor kids to go dumpster-diving for food.
If you don’t like your whole party being accused of heartlessness or of not caring about the poor, then you should speak out against the people in your party who frequently make heartless statements which demean the poor. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
“No Chris, that is not what he said.”
Sorry, but that is exactly what he said. Allow me to quote:
“My immediate command was to authorize the in extremis response force we have stationed in Italy and have stationed throughout the world. They tell me those helicopters take two hours to get there, I launch them immediately, they were in the air within 15 minutes… Now, you called the result a debacle. Yes, it’s absolutely true, when our helicopters arrived on the scene we were too late to save that ambassador, we were too late to save those brave SEALs that died, an RPG shot down one of our helicopters and 14 SEALS were killed in a rescue attempt that was called a catastrophe and a debacle. It’s a catastrophe and a debacle not to go. I’d do it again tomorrow. Our people around the world need to understand that when Americans are at risk, America is going to come to their aid whether we get there in time or not.”
Tina: “Apparently you can’t grasp the concept of power through strength that need not be used…or if needed, quickly dispels notions of weakness.”
Hoe exactly does Whittle’s weird daydream show “power through strength?” He admits it wouldn’t have accomplished anything, and would have been considered an international embarassment. There is no way this sends a message of strength to the world.
“If you bang your head against a cabinet and break the skin causing a big bruise do you bang it again and again or has the cabinet taught you something?”
Whittle and you seem to be the ones not learning from past mistakes, Tina. Whittle is using the same “shoot first, ask whether it was worth it never” mentality that got us into war in Iraq.