1. We are advised to NOT judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics, but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few lunatics. Funny how that works. And here’s another one worth considering…
2. Seems we constantly hear about how Social Security is going to run out of money. But we never hear about welfare or food stamps running out of money. What’s interesting is the first group “worked for” their money, but the second didn’t. Think about it…..and last but not least,
3. Why are we cutting benefits for our veterans, no pay raises for our military and cutting our army to a level lower that before WWII, but we are not stopping the payments or benefits to illegal aliens?
Did you forget that you posted this same fallacious article only a few months ago?
Chris, since you are not King yet, I shall accept your term “fallacious” as your humble opinion. On the other hand I enjoyed posting it because people need to be reminded and what better time than just before Tuesday’s election?
Repetition!
An addition to the list of seven deadly sins?
Jack…how could you!
More thoughts on the direction at The American Thinker, “Which Will We Choose? Our America, or Theirs?” By Jeffrey T. Brown
Would add to #3 “..illegal aliens or congressmen.”
Well, then I may as we’ll repeat my response from last time:
1. Who exactly is saying that we need to judge all gun owners for the actions of a few? I have not heard nothing resembling such rhetoric on the left.
2. This question answers itself. Because SS is a program that people pay into, separately from any other funds. It is possible to run out of money. Welfare and food stamps don’t rely on any one specific fund.
It’s also a generalization to say that people on food stamps and welfare didn’t work for those programs; many people currently receiving such govt assistance have worked and payed income taxes in the past. This statement is just another right wing attack on welfare recipients that characterizes them as lazy people who don’t work. You are never going to change the perception of Republicans as hostile to the poor if you continue engaging in this class warfare rhetoric.
Progressives have offered a very simple solution to the problem of Social Security running out of money; eliminate the cap on taxable earnings. There is no reason someone making a million dollars a year should pay the exact same amount in social security as someone making 120,000 a year. Eliminating the cap would make SS permanently solvent. But of course conservatives are not amenable to this solution because it asks the rich to sacrifice. All sacrifices must come from the poor according to the modern right.
3. Payments and benefits to undocumented immigrants are already illegal. Cuts to veterans is a bipartisan problem, and neither party’s hands are clean when it comes to the I humane way our veterans are treated.
Please forgive the many grammar errors in the above comment.
Chris: “This statement is just another right wing attack on welfare recipients…”
Only because you CHOOSE to make it an attack on people rather than policy. Your unwillingness to discuss this as a citizen interested in doing what works gets in the way in our discussions. The idea is to improve conditions and change things when they are found to be detrimental or lacking in effectiveness both in human terms and in terms of the cost, waste, and abuse of the system.
“You are never going to change the perception of Republicans as hostile to the poor if you continue engaging in this class warfare rhetoric.”
This too is a flawed view. Republicans are not hostile to the poor. We support ideas that would better educate and uplift the poor, get them started in the work force and in entrepreneurial activity within their cities and neighborhoods. We think it would work better to offer a hand up, a way out for their children and future generations. We also think charity and private grants with personal hands on care and accountability work better than cold, uninvolved government handouts.
The left has painted a negative picture and colored the prism through which you haven chosen to view the Republican position. It’s your loss, Chris. If you actually care about the poor you will show some interest rather than joining the radicals that have used Alinky #12 to falsely accuse and demonize Republicans.
“Progressives have offered a very simple solution to the problem of Social Security running out of money; eliminate the cap on taxable earnings.”
Like they eliminated the cap on Medicare earnings a few years back, which has not changed the way this program piles up public debt, it won’t work. At best it would apply a temporary band-aid while taking more money out of the private sector where jobs are created and wealth is produced.
“There is no reason someone making a million dollars a year should pay the exact same amount in social security as someone making 120,000 a year.”
I guess that’s because a citizen making a million a year should be considered less equal than a citizen making $120K or less?
The cap represents the most our representatives decided any citizen should have to pay to sustain the program. This was one of the promises made when the legislation was being sold so it would pass. (Like, “You can keep your doctor” and your premium “will decrease by @2500.”) Promises were made again and again as they increased and then eliminated the cap on Medicare. The program, like all government programs, was built on a pack of lies in the first place. Those at the top of the cut off and above pay the maximum amount year after year and many will probably never use it. There is no reason they should pay more. The progressive left wants them to do so to cover for the blatant mismanagement of funds and because redistribution and greater government control is the end goal for progressives. The only property rights they work to preserve are their own. (Warren Buffet for tax hikes that would encourage investment in his hedge funds)
Our government borrows from the MC and SS program funds. The greed and irresponsible management should make you angry. I predict it will one day.
“…conservatives are not amenable to this solution because it asks the rich to sacrifice.”
Americans should by now be fully aware of the promises made by politicians that don’t materialize. Conservatives are just a little ahead of the curve in noticing that our representatives don’t tell the truth, don’t serve the people, and don’t manage our money well.
It’s true that we resent a government that has come to think of the money any of us earn as theirs to take and spend, but this applies to all Americans, not just to the wealthy. In the Obama economy nobody but the wealthy can be tapped. Only the wealthy make money and that’s only because they have it and have learned how to protect it. They could be making even more, and producing more opportunities for others if the curent policy wasn’t so negative to investment, business, and real growth.
It’s also worth noting that America is currently receiving a little boost due to the fact that the rest of the world is worse off.
Its been a race to the bottom economy since 2009 and you think Americans should listen to progressives?
The conservative view focuses on government overreach. It’s a matter of and embrace of the founding principle of freedom and private property rights. And it has quickly become a matter of rejecting government blunting the powerhouse private sector where the wealth and opportunity for our entire nation is generated.
An American Thinker article might be appropriate to share about now:
The more the radical left tries to manage and control wages and the economy the sicker America becomes economically and the less opportunity for advancement there is for the American people.
Unfortuantely, the ugliest outcome of progressive economic policy is the high number of unemployed and underemployed, the high number of people that no longer try to get a job, the high number of people in poverty and on food stamps and the fact that women and minorities have been hurt the most!
“Payments and benefits to undocumented immigrants are already illegal.”
Except they have to be enrolled in our schools and if they get sick and show up at emergency rooms they have to be treated and they are given instructions about how to receive benefits and they do.
Come on Chris, join us in the real world. The reality of the failed progressive model has been highlighted in the last five years of progressive control. Democrats have enacted their so-called “caring” policies like never before and we are dying. The radical progressives serve themselves and their own political ambition by using people and pitting groups against each other. That’s not America.
“Please forgive the many grammar errors in the above comment.”
Gladly if you will kindly do the same for others here who are also imperfect human beings subject to error and expressing their views as best they can.
We all have more fun when we can discuss without trying to humiliate or bully, wouldn’t you agree?
I’ve said this before and I’ll do it again in the hopes it will get through to those who struggle with the concept that wages will remain low when there are less jobs than people willing to work for those jobs.
Cesar Chavez knew this and was opposed to illegal immigrants who would take the farmer worker’s jobs and work for less money.
“. . when the farm workers strike and their strike is successful, the employers go to Mexico and have unlimited, unrestricted use of illegal alien strikebreakers to break the strike. And, for over 30 years, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has looked the other way and assisted in the strikebreaking. I do not remember one single instance in 30 years where the Immigration Service has removed strikebreakers. . . .The employers use professional smugglers to recruit and transport human contraband across the Mexican border for the specific act of strikebreaking . . .” Cesar Chavez
From Wikipedia.
“By the late 1970s, his tactics had forced growers to recognize the UFW as the bargaining agent for 50,000 field workers in California and Florida. However, by the mid-1980s membership in the UFW had dwindled to around 15,000.[2]
Immigration:
The UFW during Chavez’s tenure was committed to restricting immigration. Chavez and Dolores Huerta, cofounder and president of the UFW, fought the Bracero Program that existed from 1942 to 1964. Their opposition stemmed from their belief that the program undermined U.S. workers and exploited the migrant workers. Since the Bracero Program ensured a constant supply of cheap immigrant labor for growers, immigrants could not protest any infringement of their rights, lest they be fired and replaced. Their efforts contributed to Congress ending the Bracero Program in 1964. In 1973, the UFW was one of the first labor unions to oppose proposed employer sanctions that would have prohibited hiring undocumented immigrants. Later during the 1980s, while Chavez was still working alongside Huerta, he was key in getting the amnesty provisions into the 1986 federal immigration act.[24]
On a few occasions, concerns that undocumented migrant labor would undermine UFW strike campaigns led to a number of controversial events, which the UFW describes as anti-strikebreaking events, but which have also been interpreted as being anti-immigrant. In 1969, Chavez and members of the UFW marched through the Imperial and Coachella Valleys to the border of Mexico to protest growers’ use of undocumented immigrants as strikebreakers. Joining him on the march were Reverend Ralph Abernathy and U.S. Senator Walter Mondale.[25] In its early years, the UFW and Chavez went so far as to report undocumented immigrants who served as strikebreaking replacement workers (as well as those who refused to unionize) to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.[26][27][28][29][30]
In 1973, the United Farm Workers set up a “wet line” along the United States-Mexico border to prevent Mexican immigrants from entering the United States illegally and potentially undermining the UFW’s unionization efforts.[31] During one such event, in which Chavez was not involved, some UFW members, under the guidance of Chavez’s cousin Manuel, physically attacked the strikebreakers after peaceful attempts to persuade them not to cross the border failed.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesar_Chavez
Cesar Chavez figured out illegal immigrants would take jobs away from legal residents and worked hard to stop them. He even supported closing the border. Why can’t today’s progressive Democrats realize it too or do they not want to for another reason?
And it all springs from the sick-making, and quite un-Christian supposition that “they” are not “us”, and therefore unworthy.
You’re making me use the “B” word … again.
Libby: “…supposition that “they” are not “us”, and therefore unworthy.
I’m not sure who you are addressing here with that “B” word but I’ve noticed you are the one most likely here to notice the color of skin or ethnicity of people. You bring it up constantly. I have only to conclude that you are incapable of thinking about issues except in terms of race…isn’t that a bit infantile? and if that isn’t the problem the only other purpose for such blatant race consciousness is a political agenda. It’s well known that hard core radicals on the left play the race card when they desperately need to smear those who may have a different opinion.
Putting motivation aside I’d like to know who is “they,” why do you suppose they “are us,” and what exactly makes you consider them “unworthy.” After all this is the narrow view you have chosen to see…explain yourself.
Peggy Chavez wanted to control wages as most union people do and when he was faced with free market competition, people willing to do the work for less, he sought to deny them, and the growers, that freedom.
If there is anyone who makes others “unworthy” it is the socialists who join together to prevent people, worker and business owner, from contracting together on their own. Anyone who threatens the collectivist is automatically unworthy and targeted for destruction. The socialist want a monopoly and will prevent others from working when/if they can. This is akin to mob rule (mafia and anarchist)…conform or get your head bashed in…play along or we will destroy your business.
Sick-making…yes! Un-Christian…absolutely!
Tina, darling … you need to re-read that book.
Jesus … he was not REALLY into private property. I know you are … but he wasn’t.
And you can’t make him be such … just because you are.
Do you get this … at all?
Tina: “This too is a flawed view. Republicans are not hostile to the poor. We support ideas that would better educate and uplift the poor, get them started in the work force and in entrepreneurial activity within their cities and neighborhoods. We think it would work better to offer a hand up, a way out for their children and future generations. We also think charity and private grants with personal hands on care and accountability work better than cold, uninvolved government handouts.”
Yeah, that all sounds great and compassionate, but unfortunately it is drowned out by your party’s leaders referring to the poor as “takers” and “mooches” who will never “take responsibility for their own lives.”
You have engaged in this rhetoric yourself.
The left did not make you or the rest of the Republican party say these things. You said them freely, of your own volition, and you’ve never taken them back.
The left did not make you and your party look hostile to the poor. You did that to yourselves.