|
Post by donkey on Jul 16, 2024 11:55:08 GMT -5
And "free" health care and tuition aren't "free", somebody has to pay for that....that means that I am paying for your healthcare and tuition, and it means the government is running healthcare...um, no thanks. You are a European socialist...America isn't interested in that. Actually, the US is far, far more socialized than you think. K-12 education is entirely paid for by government taxes. At the university level, all state universities are taxpayer funded. And in private universities, many student loans are government funded. And all contributions are tax deductible (i.e. government subsidized). Healthcare: Medicare and Medicaid are taxpayer funded. And Obamacare is taxpayer funded. Trump became President vowing to repeal Obamacare. Republicans controlled the Senate and House so they could have done that. But Americans love Obamacare and forced Trump and the Republicans to back down. Notice that Trump and the Republicans have not uttered a word against Obamacare this election. They know when they have lost. Our taxpayer funded healthcare programs are all extremely popular. Yeah, we don't need any more socialist programs. The GOP largely castrated Obamacare years ago. They want to finish it off, but aren't running on that this time. They came within a hair of doing so during Trumps first term, but McCain stopped it. You are right, there are some socialist-like programs, mostly to protect the elderly. I personally think there needs to be a way to give people affordable healthcare for the poor...the debate is how to best do that. I just know that anything run by the government is likely to be run very inefficiently. As far as tuition goes...people need to pay their own tuition. If they can get a grant or scholarship, all the power too them. But if you take out a loan and agree to pay it back, pay it back. You got the education that the load paid for...I have no interest in paying back YOUR loan.
|
|
|
Post by BOGC on Jul 16, 2024 11:55:50 GMT -5
When I was younger, I was in favor of the government seizing all weapons from the population ... Thank you for your well reasoned arguments. Let me argue the other side. All the examples you give of democide were in dictatorships with no checks and balances. But America has checks and balances and we have had these checks and balances for almost 2-1/2 centuries. The power of the president is moderated and controlled by Congress and the judiciary. And if we don't like our government, we can always vote it out. Unlike the countries you referred to, Americans don't need an armed revolt to change their government. And the federal government isn't the only government with guns. All states have national guards, local police and state law enforcement agencies. Power in America is greatly decentralized. The people of America simply don't need guns to protect ourselves from our government, and we haven't needed that in 2-1/2 centuries. As you point out, the downside of firearm proliferation is shootings by crazies, criminals, and people overcome by rage. And things keep getting worse. In 2021 alone, there were 21K gun murders and 26K gun suicides: www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/The founding fathers did write the 2nd amendment but they specifically mentioned gun ownership in the context of a "well regulated militia". I would be perfectly happy with guns owned by a well regulated militia. My objection is gun ownership by all the crazies, criminals and out of control people. "Well regulated" back then did NOT mean the government has its eyes on you and and lots of rules for what you can and cannot do. Rather, it meant competent or effective. Like a "well regulated" clock is an accurate clock. So it meant they had what amounted to training. The present level of authoritarian regulation would have appalled the FF's (not that they weren't sometimes tempted to go that route themselves; see also Whiskey Rebellion, which the government won, except the whiskey tax was later repealed) (moreover, the part of the 2nd Amendment before the comma is NOT a limitation on the part after the comma, it's simply one very broad example of the usefulness of an armed populace) Competent could also be a bunch of folks that do volunteer rescue missions but also practice to overthrow the government if it turns tyrannical (or practice to take on a foreign invader, but that's unlikely). That of course presumes that their interpretation of tyranny is not extreme. But that's ok, because those running the government should always be more afraid of the people than the people are of government.
|
|
Rightwing Conspiracy Theorist
Guest
|
Post by Rightwing Conspiracy Theorist on Jul 16, 2024 12:13:17 GMT -5
Btw. the US constitution is an embodiment of adapting to new times…settlers who left Britain, Europe..did not want a monarchy..etc… So the thinking that they thought 250 years later their constitution would be still be …without change without „editing“ is laughable. What's laughable is that you have deluded yourself into thinking you are some kind of expert on US history and the US government. You are embarrassing yourself. If you knew anything about the US Constitution, you would know that it is subject to edits. Have you heard of amendments? The Constitution has been amended 27 times since its inception. The first 10 amendments (aka the Bill of Rights) were adopted simultaneously with the introduction of the Constitution. Since then, 17 more amendments were made for a total of 27 changes. Proposed amendments rightfully have to go through a rigorous process in order to be adopted. "To become part of the Constitution, an amendment must be ratified by three-fourths of the states (38 since 1959) by either (as determined by Congress)". These amendments become part of the law of the land. The last amendment was ratified in 1992.
|
|
|
Post by BOGC on Jul 16, 2024 12:18:12 GMT -5
Nancy Pelosi used her position when she was speaker to get inside trading information! She doesn’t want to leave congress because she is making so much money 💰 doing so! It’s amazing how the President has term limits but those in the house and senate don’t ! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_GrassleyAs I said..US constitution is outdated..does not fit anymore…created in 1776 in a agricultural society..only 13 states..much smaller ..only a few citizens (3.9 Million in 1790 - 2020 331 Million) ..only white male could vote…mostly land owners…no big cities…life expectancy 50? now industrial, digital society…very diverse..mostly in cities..women, black etc. can vote So the whole system is outdated…2 Senators per state…a joke..the 2 party system forces everyone into battle, fighting over stupid things..no compromise..nothing goes forward But the biggest joke is the Supreme Court…it really need a time limit..perhaps 10-12 years…and perhaps lawyers, judges, legals should suggest candidates because of quality and elected in a compromise.. to represent todays society, values…societies change…in the moment you have a majority in Supreme Court..even people in 1950s would have thought..OMG…they are crazy. Liberty is never outdated. Socialism always reduces liberty (with the false claim of increasing it by providing freedom from neediness). All federal judges, not just the Supreme Court, are lifetime appointments unless removed for extreme malfeasance. That's to make them immune from the current politics, with never all of them having been appointed by the same party. The best government is the government that does as little as possible, nothing more than close the borders against illegals and enforce a minimal set of laws domestically (and kill hostile foreigners abroad, but only if there's a really good reason). The compromise that led to the House being by population but the Senate being two per state made very good sense, and still does. The states predated the federal government and still retained (are are still supposed to retain) considerable sovereignty. The crazies in southern and western California and New York City represent a disproportionately large amount of the population (and illegals are let in to tilt apportionment of representatives and electoral votes to the Democrat states they mostly go to, even if they cannot themselves vote). Look sometime at a county or voting district level map of the country. The country is STILL largely rural by area, and that needs to be free of leftist attempts to run it as if it were a city (which the leftists have destroyed by over-regulating businesses but not enforcing laws against individual or organized crime). Sometime in the 60s and 70s, real civics education, which focused on awareness of what government was NOT allowed to do, and on individual responsibility, went away in favor of talk of how government should make everyone's outcomes equal. That was the KGB and their local ideological sympathizers trying and unfortunately largely succeeding in changing the way the next generation thought about government. That urgently needs to be reversed, and the left entirely dismantled and removed from power, in favor of some mix of conservatives and libertarians. (the latter are mostly sensible within the borders, and unrealistic from the borders outward; SOME conservatives go too far on social authoritarianism...but actually, most don't; the libertarians would keep them honest) Leftism is a disaster, and does not make people's lives better, not even "poor" or "oppressed" people. The left is the real racists, history is very clear about that. And to drive home the point, bad as the non-communist authoritarians in Europe were, Stalin killed more of his own people than Hitler, and Mao probably set the all time record for killing people, even if much of that was the sheer incompetence of communist agricultural policy rather than outright execution.
|
|
|
Post by The Real Outhouse on Jul 16, 2024 12:24:47 GMT -5
This sums it up.
|
|
|
Post by BOGC on Jul 16, 2024 12:26:34 GMT -5
Actually, the US is far, far more socialized than you think. K-12 education is entirely paid for by government taxes. At the university level, all state universities are taxpayer funded. And in private universities, many student loans are government funded. And all contributions are tax deductible (i.e. government subsidized). Healthcare: Medicare and Medicaid are taxpayer funded. And Obamacare is taxpayer funded. Trump became President vowing to repeal Obamacare. Republicans controlled the Senate and House so they could have done that. But Americans love Obamacare and forced Trump and the Republicans to back down. Notice that Trump and the Republicans have not uttered a word against Obamacare this election. They know when they have lost. Our taxpayer funded healthcare programs are all extremely popular. Yeah, we don't need any more socialist programs. The GOP largely castrated Obamacare years ago. They want to finish it off, but aren't running on that this time. They came within a hair of doing so during Trumps first term, but McCain stopped it. You are right, there are some socialist-like programs, mostly to protect the elderly. I personally think there needs to be a way to give people affordable healthcare for the poor...the debate is how to best do that. I just know that anything run by the government is likely to be run very inefficiently. As far as tuition goes...people need to pay their own tuition. If they can get a grant or scholarship, all the power too them. But if you take out a loan and agree to pay it back, pay it back. You got the education that the load paid for...I have no interest in paying back YOUR loan. And ObamaCare was NOT popular. The big lie was if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Didn't work out that way, and what you get is rationed care. That's fine for those who can't afford better, but middle class and up want the best they can afford, not diluted by the fact that some can't afford it, and not made hideously expensive by that either. We shouldn't have government give the needy anything, and should massacre them and anyone else if they riot. You want charity, let it be VOLUNTARY and PRIVATE, and if you're serious about it, you give voluntarily of your own money and time. Otherwise, you don't really care, you just don't want to deal with it. Sadly we've trained far too many adults to expected to be coddled like children and protected from the consequences of their own poor decisions (or skills, or luck, or circumstances, or whatever; unless you're a vegetable or basket case, it's an excuse). So all the socialist garbage can't be turned off like a light switch, it needs to phased out with some grandfathering, and some minimal residue of it could be privatized (but regulated, like banks are).
|
|
|
Post by The Real Outhouse on Jul 16, 2024 12:43:40 GMT -5
Facts
|
|
Rightwing Conspiracy Theorist
Guest
|
Post by Rightwing Conspiracy Theorist on Jul 16, 2024 20:51:36 GMT -5
And "free" health care and tuition aren't "free", somebody has to pay for that....that means that I am paying for your healthcare and tuition, and it means the government is running healthcare...um, no thanks. You are a European socialist...America isn't interested in that. Actually, the US is far, far more socialized than you think. K-12 education is entirely paid for by government taxes. At the university level, all state universities are taxpayer funded. And in private universities, many student loans are government funded. And all contributions are tax deductible (i.e. government subsidized). Healthcare: Medicare and Medicaid are taxpayer funded. And Obamacare is taxpayer funded. Trump became President vowing to repeal Obamacare. Republicans controlled the Senate and House so they could have done that. But Americans love Obamacare and forced Trump and the Republicans to back down. Notice that Trump and the Republicans have not uttered a word against Obamacare this election. They know when they have lost. Our taxpayer funded healthcare programs are all extremely popular. We also have welfare for the rich. Those programs come in the form of large contracts with the military industrial complex and Silicon Valley as well as bank bailouts. Neither party is to blame as the uniparty is all on board these wealth transfer programs
|
|
Rightwing Conspiracy Theorist
Guest
|
Post by Rightwing Conspiracy Theorist on Jul 16, 2024 21:12:47 GMT -5
Nancy Pelosi used her position when she was speaker to get inside trading information! She doesn’t want to leave congress because she is making so much money 💰 doing so! It’s amazing how the President has term limits but those in the house and senate don’t ! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_GrassleyAs I said..US constitution is outdated..does not fit anymore…created in 1776 in a agricultural society..only 13 states..much smaller ..only a few citizens (3.9 Million in 1790 - 2020 331 Million) ..only white male could vote…mostly land owners…no big cities…life expectancy 50? now industrial, digital society…very diverse..mostly in cities..women, black etc. can vote So the whole system is outdated…2 Senators per state…a joke..the 2 party system forces everyone into battle, fighting over stupid things..no compromise..nothing goes forward
But the biggest joke is the Supreme Court…it really need a time limit..perhaps 10-12 years…and perhaps lawyers, judges, legals should suggest candidates because of quality and elected in a compromise.. to represent todays society, values…societies change…in the moment you have a majority in Supreme Court..even people in 1950s would have thought..OMG…they are crazy. Actually, the bicameral system employed by the US government is a stroke of genius. The House is intended to get broad representation and its representatives are elected based on populations within each state. This form of representation has some problems because states like California, Texas and New York could easily outvote the others just by the sheer sizes of the population in those states. California has 52 reps, Texas 38 and New York 26. In contrast, Alaska, Delaware and North Dakota each have 1. Without any sort of balancing institution, we would find states with very few votes paying for all of the programs desired in the much larger states. That's why the Senate exists with each state allowed to have 2 Senators. The Senate balances out the representation issues found in the House. In the senate each small state is equally represented as large states. The existence of the Senate acts as a counter-balancing body for the representation issue found in the House. The requirement to have both the Senate and House vote on bills allows for representation based not only on population, but also based on equal treatment of each state. One thing I know for sure. I would not want to live in this country if states like California and New York dominated the voting system. Those states are infested with extreme radicals and it's why they are going downhill quickly in terms of quality of life.
|
|
Rightwing Conspiracy Theorist
Guest
|
Post by Rightwing Conspiracy Theorist on Jul 16, 2024 21:24:33 GMT -5
During election season, I don't vote for a nominee because I hate the other candidate. I vote for the one who I believe can improve the quality of my life and my community. After seeing what is happening in large Democrat-run cities, it is very difficult to vote for candidates on that side of the spectrum If you wanted to convince others to vote for Democrats, could you specify the policies that Democrats have put in place over the last 4 years to improve the quality of life of the average American? If all you have is Orange Man Bad, then it will be difficult to see things your way.
|
|
|
Post by colt46 on Jul 16, 2024 23:17:18 GMT -5
The Real outhouse needs to clean all the crap 💩 out of his outhouse it’s starting to stink real bad with all the liberals craping in it!
|
|
|
Post by colt46 on Jul 16, 2024 23:17:56 GMT -5
The Democratic Party is over !
|
|
|
Post by The Real Outhouse on Jul 17, 2024 1:44:24 GMT -5
During election season, I don't vote for a nominee because I hate the other candidate. I vote for the one who I believe can improve the quality of my life and my community. After seeing what is happening in large Democrat-run cities, it is very difficult to vote for candidates on that side of the spectrum If you wanted to convince others to vote for Democrats, could you specify the policies that Democrats have put in place over the last 4 years to improve the quality of life of the average American? If all you have is Orange Man Bad, then it will be difficult to see things your way. I get it - you will sell your birthright for a bowl of porridge. How about this "improvement in the quality of life" - protecting our freedoms against the attacks from an egomaniac wanna-be dictator who sees the federal government as something he can subvert, and who never met a lie he didn't like. Or another "improvement in the quality of life" - saving our nation by defeating Putin. Trump/Vance can't be bothered. They can't see beyond the end of their noses - they will let him do whatever he wants. They themselves have said so. First Ukraine - then what next? And if Putin does whatever he wants, why stop China from doing likewise. Talk about global chaos - this will be exactly that. What effect do you think this will have on your "quality of life"? Trump doesn't give a sh!t about you. He said it himself. He only wants your vote. He doesn't care about you. He is devoid of any values except his own self-aggrandizement and greed. I'm sure you will post a typical snarky reply. I find your short-sightedness to be sincerely disheartening.
|
|
|
Post by colt46 on Jul 17, 2024 6:49:25 GMT -5
A non American 🇺🇸 telling us how to run our country! Go run your own country!
|
|
|
Post by Socal Fan on Jul 17, 2024 6:50:04 GMT -5
Or another "improvement in the quality of life" - saving our nation by defeating Putin. Trump/Vance can't be bothered. They can't see beyond the end of their noses - they will let him do whatever he wants. They themselves have said so. First Ukraine - then what next? And if Putin does whatever he wants, why stop China from doing likewise. Talk about global chaos - this will be exactly that. What effect do you think this will have on your "quality of life"? Agreed. Trump has repeatedly said he will end the Ukraine war in one day. Of course, the only way to do that is to surrender and give Putin all the land he wants. Neville Chamberlain did that when he gave Hitler what Hitler wanted in Czechoslovakia in return for "peace". But all that did was tell Hitler that the Allies were weak and would do anything to avoid war. In an earlier post, one of the 20 goals of Trump for his next term was to build a strong defense for our country. Our biggest enemy by far is the Russia/China alliance. The Ukraine war is a war of attrition that is wearing down Russian military assets. Spending money to help Ukraine destroy Russian military assets is how we get the biggest bang for our defense dollars. And with zero American casualties. It has been said that Ukraine is corrupt. Maybe, but there is plenty of corruption and waste in our defense industry too. What is proven is that even with corruption, Ukraine is destroying Russian military assets and improving the military balance of power. We cannot build a safer world by ourselves, we need allies. Our allies are spending billions helping Ukraine because they realize that Russia is a threat to themselves and everyone else. We need to help Ukraine but not because we like Ukraine (we don't, necessarily) or because they are a great country (they aren't, necessarily) but because helping them fight our biggest enemy is in our own best interests.
|
|