Ted, Do you really believe John is racist?
Let's put it this way. His comments sounded a lot like when Tim May accused me of being ungrateful over the Korean War.
I KNOW you don't believe TM and JF think a like. TM is in a class of his own.
Despite their opposing political viewpoints, the similarities between the two are striking. Two old fogies who won't give me the benefit of the doubt or see things from my point-of-view just because I'm nothing but a young punk to them.
Come to think of it, you should know that feeling, right? ;-)
In spite of the standard BS most people spout on these threads that you become more conservative as you get older......I just don't buy it. I think its a POV.......a value system that we each have......and I think it is held when you are younger but in the case of conservative values, it is masked by the need to conform and the belief that when you are young you want everything to be new and innovative. DR talks about being liberal when he was in his 20s but I bet that was more about fitting in with his peers rather than seriously espousing liberal views. I have known any number of people who were 20 something but acted like and held values systems that were more typical of someone who was 50. But those people and their POVs are often ignored by the general crowd and the media.
First, there is a common view held by some GOP that the poor are one level above parasites and any assistance provided them is a waste and smacks of socialism. I wonder sometimes if you hide behind that view so you won't have feel guilty when taxes are reduced and they will lose some assistance? After all, JC spoke of the poor repeatedly and encouraged all to be generous to them.
There are people I know who truly feel that way when it comes to helping the poor. These are the people who truly think their wealth and prosperity are entitled to them because of all the hard work they did.
Yes, they do..........and they never quite get that not all of us are born equal or have it as good as others do.
My psych. class had a case study where we were to study this guy who was 31 and had been sentenced to die by lethal injection. We were given his background and then asked to decide whether he should be allowed to live or die.
It turns out he was born out of wedlock to a teenage mother who was badly addicted to drugs and alcohol. The teratogen damage to him was apparent at birth. In the first few years of his life, his mother's boyfriend [not his real father] beat him unmercifully. Then his mother married some guy who would sexually abuse him. He saw the rape of his older sister when he was 5 and her death of a drug overdose when she was 9. According to school reports, he came to school bruised almost every day. His happiest times were when he was taken away from his mother and put into an institution. At those times, he would seem to flourish a little. By the time he was sentenced at the age of 20, he had a reading IQ of 50 and an overall IQ of 59. He was unable to tell the court what year it was, and clearly, understood little of what was happening to him.
My point is there are times when the human imperative to live and succeed can not overcome one's birth and upbringing. That some people just do not have a chance from the day they were born........and that is the unpleasant reality. That its very likely they will become a ward of the state and you and I will have to pay to keep them alive. And all the Ayn Rand BS in the world will not make a bit of difference in the lives of these people.
And if you think this guy is unique, there are many, many more guys like him with very similar stories filling up our prisons........in fact, there are many millions.
Personally, I'm more turned off by the fact that government is perhaps the most inefficient when it comes to social, "charitable" works. These societal problems easily become political footballs to carry away by whichever candidate can pander for the most votes. Not only that, but unlike true charities where the donators choose to give, there is no choice when it comes to government. Or at least the choice isn't there when you're in the minority.
You may be turned off by the gov't's inefficiencies but you do not want a cold corporation dealing with the kind of guy I discuss above.
It's the flawed system that I'm arguing against, not the good intentions behind it. I know I don't deserve everything that I have, but I don't need people telling me that to me. It's the same "holier than thou" attitude that I learned to get rid of the hard way. Only this time, the "religion" is the socialistic mindset, and the "heathens" are those who don't believe in government being the best way to provide for the poor.
First of all, every system is flawed including the one under which INTC operates. There are inefficiencies simply because organizations are made up of people. However I will agree there are more inefficiencies with gov't than with private industry.
Secondly, the prime imperative of a corp. is to make money and not be all that humanistically oriented.......how can that MO be helpful in dealing with a guy like the one above? It can't.......there are things at which corps. are just not good and are not designed to handle. People who believe like you seem to want to ignore that fact. Corps are best at producing widgets and inventing new products. They are not good at rehabilitating people. And the out and out genocide of these people is not acceptable because we are a democracy.
Secondly, I really wonder at your support of a party whose family values skew white.
The racial stereotypes you saw other people having is very unfortunate, as well as the Buchanan-types who think the multiculturalism in this nation is killing America. These are the people who need a reality check and witness the globalization of the world around them.
This is where you and I are differ....knowing the above keeps me away from the GOP completely.
But the reason why I'm supporting the GOP is because it ideally represents strong families, hard work, individual responsibility, moral responsibility, and being able to keep what you worked for. These are values my family, both immediate and extended, have instilled in me. I realize the Dems aren't against those values, but it just seems these days that they prioritize their plans for a "Great Society" over anything else. And their belief in such a society becomes so strong that anyone who thinks those values can be upheld in more traditional ways should be scorned and ridiculed.
I am not sure what the great society is.....I believe its social programs from the 60s. However, I don't agree with your conclusions and I believe the values you discuss above are held by most people in this society whether they are Dem or GOP.
So you see, I'm not against providing for the poor; in fact, I know that if I don't, I'm inviting condemnation from someone a lot higher than any of us. But somehow, I don't think that Big Guy will accept my paying taxes as proof that I feed the hungry and shelter the homeless. We can debate over the way society ought to be structured, and whether we should be more capitalist, more socialist, or some combination of the two. But in the end, it will always be a system, and it can never be a substitute for a genuine charitable spirit among each and every one of its citizens.
Anyway, I've said more than enough for one post. Let me know later if you want to resume the debate over capitalism vs. socialism. I'll let you know why I tend to err on the side of capitalism.
I will be glad to discuss them with you but your last sentence implies that the two are mutually exclusive when they are not.
If you think of economic systems as existing on a broad spectrum, and on one end you have capitalism and at the other end communism moving from left to right, then pure socialism is roughly just right of the middle. Countries typically that fall right of the middle are China and Cuba and can be called socialistic. Countries that are left of the middle are Sweden, the US, the UK, France etc. In other words, all the western nations are capitalistic with varying degrees of socialism.
That means that Sweden is roughly just right of France and France may be just right of Germany and Germany may be just right of the US. However, in the model I saw, not one country was purely capitalistic [including the US] nor was one purely communistic [including Cuba].
On SI, the two terms get bandied about a lot and often are portrayed incorrectly. Countries in Europe are held up as almost evil monsters that should be avoided when in truth their economic systems are very much like ours and vary only in degree when it comes to socialism. Its one of the reasons why we are natural allies.
So you have to understand that I don't see the huge dichotomy that you see when you discuss capitalism vs socialism. I may be wrong but I suspect the fear that some Americans have over socialism comes mostly from ignorance and a lack of understanding of how a more socialistic system works. I don't feel that fear for a lot of different reasons. However, the prime reason is because I see us in this mess together and therefore feel I have some control over how the mess is handled. I sense with people who worry about socialism that they fear losing control over their money and their lives.
ted |
