Political Affiliation; 2008 Presidential Election

Well, certainly we take the path that we think will be the best for us, therefore it is ultimately selfish on our part. But, when you choose the path of light instead of darkness, there's a certain amount of altruism involved and that's what I admire...

Yep, it's Oklahoma City. I know exactly where that U-Haul building is - it's about 5 miles from my house. I don't know how long ago you were here, but that area surrounding the U-Haul building has really come around in the last few years. The city has put in a canal with boatrides and lots of clubs and restaurants have also come in. A new ballpark was built within a stone's throw of the U-Haul building and the same with a new indoor stadium. They're getting ready to move the interstate that ran directly along the south side of the U-Haul building. The interstate will be moved about 3 miles to the south. The city has also built a boat racing area along the Oklahoma River with pavilions, vendors, etc. It's actually a very, very nice area now. And it's all within walking distance of the Oklahoma City Bombing site. Kinda strange...

I hope you liked Oklahoma City. I've lived here many years and I've found the people here to be some of the nicest you'd ever want to meet. You're welcome back in OKC anytime!!!!

 

You can say that Democrats do not focus on money, but you're just fooling yourself. It's all disguised by wrapping it up in public welfare and the need to help, but it all takes money, Moen. You're not supporting these programs with rainbows and butterflies.

Minimum wage increases... Pennsylvania adopted its own minimum wage increase program before the recent Congressional decision. Small businesses are shutting down across the state because of it. The only way they can handle paying the increased wage is to raise prices. When they raise prices people will find a cheaper source... typically at some mega-huge corporate business that already pays more than the minimum wage. So now the people who worked for these businesses are not making more, they are making nothing and signing up for unemployment compensation... as small business erodes and the mega-huge corporations see more money flow into their already stuffed coffers. The cure is not to raise the minimum which results in price inflation which results in a need to raise the minimum wage which results in... see how these programs create horrible cycles?

The solution is to fix the problems that cause inflation and to stabilize the economic system... namely the dismantling of the Federal Reserve and the ability to create money at will. My absolute favorite TJ quote... I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs... not a money issue to me so much as an issue of power being taken away from the people and the problems that result. Seems eerily prophetic.

A system as large as the Public Welfare system is too big to keep any check on the number of folks who abuse vs. those who need. There is a convenience store near my house. I have gotten to know the folks there pretty well and will stand and talk at times. One day I was in there and a friend of the cashier came in. They started chatting about another friend of theirs. This other friend was in a relationship that she wanted to get out of. The girl who had come in made the comment that their friend was sticking in the relationship because if she got out she would have to work. The girl behind the counter, to my dismay and without skipping a beat, respond very boldly... "That's what welfare is for! Tell her to get her *ss down to the office and sign up." To me, that is not an example of desperate need, but that is how MANY people view the system.

Localized private charitable organizations can handle the problems much more efficiently. Here we have the Adams County Rescue Mission. They are a conservative christian organization, if you can believe that such an organization can exist. It provides aid to needy families and individuals. They provide work programs for those they house in their homeless shelter and work to help set them up in their own places to sustain themselves. The mission is funded by their thrift store of donated items, donated recyclables, cash donations from individuals, businesses and churches. They work directly with the people they help rather than knowing them primarily by their SSN. They have the ability to ascertain those with real need from those who would just live off of the system. I prefer my support to go to groups such as this.

I guess it all depends on what you consider to be wealth, my friend. No doubt you likely have more money than I do, but that's not how I measure my own richness. I do not lament my place on the socio-economic ladder. I embrace it. What I gained by experience far outweighs what I could have accumulated in dollar wealth. I've got the rest of my life to build my "empire" and while others my age may have a head start, I learned how to live very modestly without the use of credit... not a whole lot eccentricity available to you when living in an ambulance. So, now I'm making a fair wage and using the policies that I learned in my travels to manage and budget what I make. Sure I wouldn't mind a bit more, but I can and will build it myself. I don't need to take from someone else's lot... whether they deserve what they have or not.

For the record... I like you, Moen. I believe that you really do care. My question to you is don't you think that the portion that you pay into government programs would be better served in private local programs that are more easily checked by those that support them? Peace.

 

My understanding is that this quote that is commonly attributed to Jefferson is actually a hoax. It doesn't appear in the source documents that it has been attribted to. I haven't checked this out myself by going to the National Archive and looking it up, but it is interesting how something can appear true if repeated often enough. Anyway, it's still a great thought.

 

Check, I think you're a nice guy with a good heart. I just see one problem with your outlook on life. You rely pretty heavily on anecdotal evidence in almost all of your examples. For those that don't know what anecdotal evidence is, it is evidence based on casual observations or indications rather than rigorous or scientific analysis. It also tends to reinforce already held beliefs and biases. If you already believe that everyone on welfare is just scamming the system and lazy, you'll look for examples out in the world that back up that belief.

The other problem I see is that the bias is also extended into the choice of authoritative references cited as proof of an already held belief. If you believe the world is flat, you'll seek out sources that may only be opinions and believe that they are God's own truth. For instance, nobody has done more to reform welfare and reduce the number of people on the welfare dime than our last Democratic president yet the perception of Democrats as welfare queens persists because people don't want their deeply held perceptions challenged.

I hate the thought of people collecting welfare, having multiple babies, and perpetuating generational government dependence, but I'd much rather see money going to the poorest among us regardless of the reasons than to the richest among us. It all comes from the same pot anyway and if we teach them to fend for themselves instead of pushing them further into poverty, they may learn to stand on their own someday.

 

Also, I can never figure why self-described hard working people are so bothered by people they view as lazy and unwilling to work. If you choose to be hard working and dedicated that's just great. But why act bitter towards those people that don't share your values? You are clearly the better person for your work ethic, why do you have to put others down for not doing as you do? Does it make them work any harder? Are you a better person for your bitterness? It just adds to the problem and lessens the quality of life for all of us. The more we ignore our fellow human beings, the colder the world we all live in gets.

I just believe that I don't know what the factors are that went into the making of these peoples attitudes towards work and for all I know, there may actually be good reasons for their attitudes. I am not a minority, I wasn't raised in poverty, I didn't have divorced parents, I didn't suffer the death of a loved one growing up. I can't put myself into someone else's shoes and know what they have gone through enough to judge their plight. If they are living with the attitude that the rest of us owe them a living, we need to change their perception in a way that doesn't drive them into poverty and in turn take the next generation with them.

Democrats can suffer from an excess of heart but at least their hearts are in the right place. Republicans on the otherhand, can suffer from a lack of any heart for purely material reasons. If I'm going to err, hopefully it will be on the side of compassion not cash.

 

because hard working people end up supporting them and that breeds contempt...it does in me...I work 8 hours a day + for 5-6 days a week...I dont want to support people who dont work...nuff said.

 

Well to be perfectly honest, I don't want to support stupid foreign wars, should I hate the soldiers that fight in them? I don't want to support Christian based charities that push their version of God on people before they offer any help. Should I hate all Christians that don't believe as I do? I don't want to support dictators and puppet governments in poor countries. Should I hate all foreign countries?

The point is that you may not want to support people with your tax money that have a different work ethic from yourself, but you already support so many things that you probably dislike, what possible difference could it make if some people that want to live off of Uncle Sucker get some of that cash? It just seems cruel to beat up on poor people anyway you look at it. Poverty is certainly not always a choice yet many people lump the poor into one pot and call them all lazy. Poverty in this country and most other counties have deep roots that rarely come down to simple laziness. It's the easy answer that allows some among us to justify their dislike for those less fortunate then themselves. The bitterness is ugly and inhumane.

 

These just don’t make sense and have little to do with the topic or my points…I am not saying I hate all people on welfare…I don’t like people who don’t work and are perfectly able to. I am not saying all or nothing black or white...you should know better.

Absurd. its not a ‘difference in work ethic’…you either work and support yourself or you don’t and become a burden to others…it all boils down to WHY you don’t…the easy answer is just to throw money at them and be done with it....the real work is in finding who needs it and who is just a leech.

Old? Worked all your life as a productive member of society and now you have a hard time of it? No problem in my book…lets give a little hand.

Cant find a job that suits you? Get a job a McDs, wendys, sears, etc..etc…and keep looking for a better one…I don’t want to support you because the jobs out there dont fit your lifestyle…

Cant work because you are fat? Cant work because you had children and now want to stay home but cant support them? Cant work because you are depressed, hooked on drugs and booze? Screw that…

Disabled? We should help…but even most disabled people can work.

Its not a difference of ‘work ethic’, it’s those who HAVE a work ethic and those who don’t and doing ones fair share in society and not being a burden to others…If you are working your ass off and cant make ends meet…there should be a program that will help you better yourself as a person who works their ass off should make a good living, they are becoming so rare…NOT a program to hand out money. No jobs where you live? MOVE!! Maybe someone can help you move to where the jobs ARE...I did.

I am sorry if I sound cold about this but I was poor as dirt…I worked my ASS off in a 250 degree dishroom, I picked pecans, I ate weeks old bread I found in the dumpster behind winn-dixie…I worked as a farm hand picking…I delivered pizza…I was a janitor…I got a grant, I went to school (while still working the worst of jobs) I lived in a leaning shack with holes in the walls…ate ramen and 25 cent burritos…and now I have an education, a house and a job...wife and about to have a kid...a savings, investments...etc...I am from a hick town in East Texas. I have seen people who are just okay with living in poverty and off the government dole....half the little crap town I came from is like this...the other half leave to go where the jobs are...I have SEEN it....people who lived all around me...they know whats out there, what they need to do....but they know someone else will do it for them.... PEOPLE can DO it…if they don’t know how there should be government programs to tell them how if they want it…if not…screw them…honestly.

I don’t like a lot of the things you mentioned either and I am part of groups and I vote for people I think will change things…its not like you just sit back and say ‘OH WELL, NOTHING I CAN DO’

Like anything its not a cut and dry black and white situation…I am not completely against welfare but I think it is a perpetuation of ignorance, a cycle that needs to be broken and you can help someone all their lives trying to teach them another way but if they don’t want to, they wont…plain and simple…they need to be shown the way…and if they don’t take it…and they are not completely insane or crippled…then I have no obligation…

Charity groups and bleeding hearts can take care of them, and I give to one…voluntarily…which is how that should be handled…government should only help those in TRUE need through no fault of their own. I am not bitter about it, it doesnt eat me up inside, I dont lie awake at nights like danr or you do about Bush Its just if I hear someone enspousing a way I think is smart...personal accountability, etc...I will support it.

My money = 8 hours a day of my LIFE...8 hours a day of my life to gather that money to help me live...I work hard for it...I resent people who do not do the same taking it. Its like taking my life.

 

You assume that I have set my mind in one direction... that I view everyone as working the system. That's not true, but I know from experience that there are alot more that use the system than you want to admit. Once you've spent a great deal of your life with and among the poor, those who truly need help and those who choose to waste their life, then tell me all about it.

I support the local mission and I contribute as well. I spent a year with the homeless and poor all over the country living as one of them and trying to show them that even from ground zero it is possible to build something good. I can't give you experience only anectdotes. At one time you talk about the cut and paste regurgitation of rhetoric, so I come to you with experience and you tell me I only see what I want to see. What better basis for drawing conclusion than first hand experience and observation? A blind man can read volumes about the color red in braille. He can have an absolute scientific understanding of the color that sits lowest in the light spectrum, but he'll never know what it looks like and he'll never be able to tell anyone if he thinks it's a good color or not.

Is it possible that you only see what you want to see as well, and your looking through eyes that have never truly seen? Dive into it, Moen. I'm not talking about donate a little time here and there. I'm talking about inviting them into your life. Spending time day after day building relationships, sharing your understanding and your food. See for yourself what difference you make in the majority. I've been all around this country, cities, suburbs, rural... It doesn't matter where you are. It's all the same.

Perhaps the saddest possibility of all is simply that by filing your taxes every year you feel you have done your part and can go on with your life without ever really looking, but calling those who have looked and see the depth of the problem cold and greedy... and I truly hope that is not the case.

To finish this post, simply insert all of what Drusus said above with some modifications to the anectdotal portions.

 

Well, that would be very sad indeed if it is in fact a hoax. I'll start digging a little deeper for it myself...

I should modify my statement however... my favorite Jefferson quote is actually... "Coffee is the favorite drink of the civilised world."

 

Hey Check_M_All. I don't quite understand the point you were making in the above post. But it made me think anyway. I personally have spent my life among the poor. In fact, an hour ago I was hanging out with a single mother in her trailer with no running water. Although I always have compassion for the poor, have been known to give the homeless guys on the corners a couple bucks, and tend to lean slightly more left than right, I must say; for the most part these folks I know get money on the first of da month, spend the majority of this welfare and child support on weed, boooze, coke, and extacy, and then spend the rest of the month calling their baby-daddies, boyfreinds, families, preachers, and charities begging for money so they can pay their bills. Then, once they get the money, they pay just enough of the bills to keep a roof over their head, a little food in the pantry, and electricity running (God forbid they not have power to watch their stolen DVD's.), and then spend even more to get high...Anyway, I don't really know that my post had much of a point either. Just some things I've seen in my personal experience.
Damn, I always ramble right before I go to sleep!

 

You understand well enough, Adam

 

I never thought this thread would boil down to me defending welfare. I am not a big advocate for the various welfare programs or those that abuse them. Niether do I think that those on welfare are sitting around laughing at all you suckers supporting their lazy decadent lifestyles. The truth is probably that there is some abuse of the system and some very deserving folks receiving help when they need it. It's just a matter of which group you choose to focus on and inflate to make your beliefs sound more credible.

If you believe that we are all operating on a level playing field when it comes to socioeconomic opportunities, and that a poor black woman has the same advantages as a white male in this country, there is probably little I can say to prove this is just fantasy. Do any poor black woman ever make it out of the dire situations they are born into? Absolutely! Do they do it in any where near the numbers white males do? Certainly not even close. Does that make white males superior to black woman?

I guess it just suprises me that people that claim to have grown up poor and regularly associate with the poor have so little compassion for the factors that contribute to poor people's lot in life. I personally think that there might be a subconscious effort by some folks to distance themselves from their previous life by looking down on those people that exemplify the life they came from. But that's just psychobabble and only worth moderate consideration even if it explains some of the bitterness towards the less fortunate.

Let me leave it at this, being poor, drug dependent, lazy, drunk, and indigent isn't a life of leisure and if any number of poor people fall into that categoty, I can assure you they are not the happiest folks on the planet. If you want to complain and decry them for having to support them with our collective tax dollars, I put forth that you could probably find more deserving targets for your bitterness of having to work at a job you hate for people you don't much like. The poor are far closer to your economic status than those that recieve even more money from the governemnt coffers at the top. If they can keep you guys at each others throats, they don't have to worry about you turning your focus in their direction. Besides, you may end up joining those folks at the bottom someday. Then who will you despise?

 

I wont join them as I will always work...and there are always jobs however crappy for those who will work.

And again...concern for welfare fraud (that most certainly exists) does not preclude concern for the fraud at the top...the difference is...you want us to put money in the hands of those people at the top (government) and trust they will spend it right and trickle it down...while I would prefer the money to go to good charities that WILL use a the majority of it to help people (and even many of them are frauds and your money might being going to furnish some charity CEOs office).

I think someone who comes from poverty might be a bit more critical of people who sit on welfare because we know and have seen the mentality.

Tell you how many people I know did it. They worked jobs on the side for cash payout. Farm labor, house cleaning, all kinds of things. One of them was picking pecans where I was from...I did it as well...you get a bucket and go around town (our area had pecan trees everywhere) and you pick pecans off the ground, fill several buckets...take it to the company in town who buys them. Do this a few time a week you have beer money and money for smokes and bit left over....then you get your welfare check (food stamps). Now some people are able to get free food from charities and small town churches so they instead cash the food stamps in for 50-75 cents on the dollar to small businesses who will do this...buy more beer...or if they do use the food stamps they buy all the most expensive brand names...

not everyone mind you...but in an area like I used to live in...there is a whole support system to make it easier for you to work the system because half the town is on it.

Oh well...difference of opinion.

 

I know thats true. And I'm not in favor of doing away with government aid. I just wish I didn't see it terribly misused on a daily basis. I do know some poor people who aren't dope feinds and such, but those people all work in fast food or factories, and have never even thought of applying for help from the government.
I think the question is, how can we better regulate welfare...

 

I think Clinton did a lot to change welfare and was certainly helped by a booming economy. I think one of the main problems with welfare is that some of those on it aren't mentally capable of supporting themselves. We lump them in with working poor and down and out people when they should be addressed by the health community. It is just cheaper to give them a couple of hundred bucks a month than the thousands it would cost to address their mental health issues. Drugs and alcohol are probably just the self-medication the poor are left with...And some of them are just plain drunks too.

 

I pretty much agree with all that.

 

Was a time that I followed Dr. Martin Luther King's word sof judge a man not by the color of his skin but by his character and I was thought by many to be a democrat liberal. Now I still live my life that way and by many I am thought to be a republican right wing conservative.
Go figure.

That is one reason why I am an independent.
The party's change their platforms all the time
but I am the same at the core.