[Wondergirl]

And retired parents don't get kidnapped and robbed in Duke, OK... or did you miss that?

How often does this happen?

Twinkie's point which is relevant.

The media are the ones who have turned this into a cause. Child snatchings are rare and have gone down over the past 50 years. There are fewer now than when I was a kid. In my early childhood ed classes, the subject of children's safety was to keep them from hurting themselves and each other. Child protective agencies are more concerned about non-custodial parents or relatives, rather than a stranger, taking a child. When it comes to a child having been harmed, first look at the family members.

[galveston]

Several posts back, there were those who spoke for government benefits.

There used to be a place where government provided everything. Jobs, health care, housing, etc.

People were literally dying to get out of it.

It was called the USSR. Remember it?

[Wondergirl]

It was called the USSR. Remember it?

But the citizens weren't given a choice.

[speechlesstx]

How often does this happen?

Why does that matter? A local jury just sentenced a man last week for murdering 3 people in their farmhouse 60 miles from here. You act as if rural crime isn't a problem and it is.

The media are the ones who have turned this into a cause.

Now blame the media? It should be a cause, neighbors should be able to help each other without fear of the government clamping down.

Child snatchings are rare and have gone down over the past 50 years. There are fewer now than when I was a kid.

So what? Why are you marginalizing this concern? I don't get it, it makes no sense.

In my early childhood ed classes, the subject of children's safety was to keep them from hurting themselves and each other.

OK, whatever. All I know is I wouldn't leave my children for an hour at a bus stop without someone to protect them... and my first concern is not about what they'd do to each other.

Child protective agencies are more concerned about non-custodial parents or relatives, rather than a stranger, taking a child. When it comes to a child having been harmed, first look at the family members.

Again, it makes my case. A non-custodial parent is more likely to know this would be an opportunity to grab the kid. Give it up Wondergirl, your dismissing this concern is silly.

[ETWolverine]

Wolverine,
Let me understand your position. You agree that the government has.. "the power and responsibility to run wars, maintain security and keep the peace... as well as to maintain roadways, infrastructure, the mail system, etc." but you don NOT believe the government (BY and FOR the PEOPLE - remember that, in the Constitution?) should be used to ensure the physical health of its citizens, protect the environment they live in, protect them from the unscrupulous manipulation of the powerful for their own gain, or provide for them an equitable means of educating their children?

By what method would a government insure the physical health of it's citizens?

The BEST they could do is offer health INSURANCE or MEDICAL CARE not actual health. It is impossible to insure someone's health. The best insurance in the world cannot guarantee someone's health. The best health care in the world cannot guarantee someone's health. It can only guarantee CARE, not actual health.

I believe that it IS the government's job to make sure that everyone can get the health care they want/need/desire. The ONLY way that they can do that is by (and you skipped this prior quote from me) insuring that there is a free market in which people can purchase and sell goods and services freely, accumulate wealth, and pass that wealth on to the next generation. It is the government's job to maintain, perpetuate and protect interstate commerce through a free market system. THROUGH THAT FREE MARKET SYSTEM people are able to purchase the goods and services they want/need/desire... including health care and health insurance.

It is NOT, however, the government's job to provide those services... merely the free market system in which OTHERS can provide it. As soon as the government gets involved in actually providing the goods and services, they have eliminated the concept of the free market, because the market is no longer free. By doing so, they violate their Constitutional mandate.

In your world, I guess we should all "be responsible" for our own needs, and the government should stay out of our lives - unless of course, its to enable those of us with power to keep and defend the privileges of that power at the expense of the weak. That about sum it up?

Nope. In MY world (ei: the REAL WORLD) people have the ability to change their financial status. The poor have the ability to become rich, and the rich often lose their money and become poor. You speak in terms of class warfare, but the fact is that in the USA there are fewer barriers between the "classes" than in any other system in the world. People can indeed move from one class to another. A lower middle-class kid from Seattle, Wa grew up to become the richest man in the world because he was able to sell something that everyone wanted. A grandson of Jewish immigrants from Russia, who's father was a real estate agent, is now a Billionaire and the Mayor or New York and #17 on the Forbes list of the world's richest people. A middle-class woman from Nutley, NJ who quit the stock-brokerage industry in 1973 to be with her daughter has become a billionaire with a major magazine, a major media company, and a TV program telling women how to be better housewives.

There is nothing keeping good people who are willing to work from becoming the next billionaire. Except the government intervention that keeps them there by eliminating free markets and incetives for hard work, of course. It is the very government interventions that you propose that create the very barriers that you complain about.

What a guy...
________________________________________________

I'd love to meet one person who expects others to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" who has actually done it..

Nice to meet you.

Elliot

[ETWolverine]

(BY and FOR the PEOPLE - remember that, in the Constitution?)

Um... no.

Because it isn't in the Constitution. It is from the Gettysburg Address.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate...we can not consecrate...we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Elliot

[ETWolverine]

Sorry for paraphrasing about We the People, I thought I'd made my point.

The preamble actually says: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

What part of health care for its citizens and proper education and fair and equal treatment under the law is incompatible with the efforts of our forefathers to "establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty?"

ALL of it.

As you have said, it is the job of the government to PROMOTE GENERAL WELFARE... not grant it, promote it. It is NOT the job of the government to GRANT anything. It is their job to promote a free market system in which people can pursue these things, not to take it upon themselves to GIVE those things.[/quote]

As for our future expenditures being dominated be a relation to benevolence, what's wrong with benevolence? What's the purpose of being a United States if not to be benevolent to ourselves? Not the wealthy and powerful ourselves, the ALL OF US ourselves? For that matter, what is the largest single future expenditure by our federal government. Is it not defense spending? Is that benevolent spending? Is military power more important than a healthy, tranquil, justly treated population? I sure hope not...

The purpose of the United States is very simple and has nothing to do with granting goods and services. It's purpose, as I have said, is to create the ENVIRONMENT in which people can pursue those goods and services and liberties on their own without interference from others (including the government). That is the part you seem to miss.

[ETWolverine]

Hello again, tom:

That would be so, if that's what we're arguing for.... But, we're not. It's your use of the word "massive" that just isn't so. If you wanted to discuss the plan as it really is, we could.. But, it's been evident from the git go, that you, along with your Fox noise machine, want to inflame the issue, and NOT discuss it...

I suppose that would be because if you REALLY debated what's really being considered, you'd LOSE in a heartbeat.

excon

PS> Why is it, that you have no objection to MASSIVE government handouts to business??? Why don't you object to the MASSIVE increase in police power the Patriot Act gave the government???? Why don't you object to the MASSIVE footprint this country is taking in the Middle East?

I know why. That's because you're very selective about WHICH massive government program you support. Some of 'em, you think are pretty cool, doncha?

A $2.3 Trillion plan seems pretty "massive" to me.

A plan that allows the government to nationalize 1/6th of our economy seems pretty "massive" to me.

Why do you deny that it is "massive?

Also... who is in favor of "massive handouts to businesses". If you will remember, we were AGAINST the government bailouts of the banks, auto manufacturers, and insurance companies that were supposedly "too big to fail". What are you talking about, excon?

As for the "massive increases of government power" of the USA Patriot Act, we are talking about powers that the Constitution already grants the government, and rightly so... the powers to defend the nation against any enemies foreign and domestic. Says so right there in the Constitution.

Elliot

[excon]

As you have said, it is the job of the government to PROMOTE GENERASL WELFARE.... not grant it, promote it. It is NOT the job of the government to GRANT anything. It is their job to promote a free market system in which people can pursue these things, not to take it upon themselves to GIVE those things.

Hello again, Elliot:

What you say is true... But, over the last 30 years or so, the government has been GRANTING private industry SPECIAL favors and SUBSIDY'S that pervert what you call a free market, into a license for them to print money.

Your principals are right. You observations are wrong. You speak as though the markets are pure. They aren't. So, once industry HAS the ear of congress, and congress passed laws that SKEWED the markets in the favor of industry, industry stops competing for customers, and starts competing for government handouts. If that WASN'T true, why does industry spend BILLIONS on lobbying congress instead of spending it to improve customer service??

That's what's happened. They've created a pretty nice situation for themselves.. Therefore, there has to be legislation to put the markets BACK to where they work for EVERYBODY, as you suggest they do, instead of for themselves, which is what they REALLY do.

excon

[ETWolverine]

Hello again, Elliot:

What you say is true... But, over the last 30 years or so, the government has been GRANTING private industry SPECIAL favors and SUBSIDY'S that pervert what you call a free market, into a license for them to print money.

Your principals are right. You observations are wrong. You speak as though the markets are pure. They aren't. So, once industry HAS the ear of congress, and congress passed laws that SKEWED the markets in the favor of industry, industry stops competing for customers, and starts competing for government handouts. If that WASN'T true, why does industry spend BILLIONS on lobbying congress instead of spending it to improve customer service?????

That's what's happened. They've created a pretty nice situation for themselves.. Therefore, there has to be legislation to put the markets BACK to where they work for EVERYBODY, as you suggest they do, instead of for themselves, which is what they REALLY do.

excon

Of course there's lobbying taking place. In fact, it takes place because the members of Congress INVITED it. They wanted (in the words of Curtis Sliwa) to be wined, dined and pocket-lined. The businesses, the unions, the eco-nut groups, the pro-gun, anti-gun, pro abortion, anti-abortion, and pro/anti-whatever-you-like groups all saw that the government officials were willing to be bought, so they bought 'em.

The key to fixing that is making lobbying illegal. But it ain't going to happen... not because of businesses, but because the members of Congress don't want it to end. They LIKE the graft they get.

You are right about that.

But where does the problem lay?

It is SUPPOSED to be the government's job to MAINTAIN, PROTECT and PROMOTE the free market. Instead, they are ELIMINATING the free market by accepting lobbyist graft.

Nowhere in any law does it say that it is the job of businesses to maintain the free markets. In fact, it is the fiduciary responsibility of any business toward its shareholders to take advantage of any edge they can get in the market place, including greasing the legislative wheels if they can get away with it. Their sole job is to make a profit, not play fair.

It is the GOVERNMENT'S job to make sure that everyone is playing on a level playing field. Instead, the government is busy accepting bribes to make the playing field as UNEVEN as possible.

So the very problem you speak of is another example of GOVERNMENT Interference in the free markets instead of their protecting the free markets from such influence.

Don't blame the companies for accepting the government officials' invitation to the party. Blame the government for throwing the party in the first place. The companies didn't do anything wrong, illegal or immoral. They did what they are supposed to do as profit-making ventures. Blame the government officials for unduly influencing the markets they were supposed to uphold as "free" as per the Constitution.

So your solution to government influence in the free markets is MORE government influence in the free markets.

What a brilliant solution. More poison to fix the poison in the system.

By contrast, my solution is to get rid of lobbying by limiting what gifts any politician can accept from any lobbyist and requiring that they be reported to the public.

I, as a Banker, cannot let a client buy me a lunch anymore, because the FDIC has determined that such "business lunches" could constitute a "conflict of interest". Gifts from clients as low as $25 have to be reported to the FDIC as well. If that is the law for bankers, why are there not similar laws for legislators and lobbyists?

Simple. Congress doesn't want 'em.

Want to eliminate the uneven playing field? Put such laws in place, and see how long lobbyists last without being able to use "gifts" to influence the politicians. For that matter, see how long members of Congress last if they realize that they aren't going to be given free meals, free booze, free trips to Cancun, free hookers, etc. by lobbyists anymore.

Get RID of government influence. Don't increase it. THEN we'll be a lot closer to the free markets that built this country. But your solution if INCREASING government influence is the exact bass-ackwards way of handling it.

Elliot

[excon]

So your solution to government influence in the free markets is MORE government influence in the free markets.

What a brilliant solution. More poison to fix the poison in the system.

Hello El:

My solution is, and always has been, term limits. I know - you forgot.

excon

[ETWolverine]

Hello El:

My solution is, and always has been, term limits. I know - you forgot.

excon

Term limits won't stop lobbying from taking place. There will still be a 12-year period for lobbyists to do their thing with politicians (assuming that you limit them to 2 terms in the Senate).

Not to mention the fact that Lobbyists would still have huge influence with the PARTIES even if their influence with the members of the Senate is limited.

No, the only way to eliminate the problem is to limit the amounts of money that they can contribute to a candidate or party or sitting elected official and force disclosure of all gifts or donations to the public.

Elliot

[ETWolverine]

Hello El:

My solution is, and always has been, term limits. I know - you forgot.

excon

Actually, your solution is and always has been more government regulation of industry... ostensibly to counter the "influence" of the lobbyists for those industries. You said so yourself earlier in this thread. You said that the "free markets" that I am proposing won't work because of lobbyist influence, and that we therefore need more regulation of corporations. THAT is your solution. But in reality it's just more of the same... government influence to fix government influence... and it can't work, because it's just doubling down on what didn't work in the first place.

Eliminating government influence is the key, not increasing it.

Elliot

[galveston]

But the citizens weren't given a choice.

And you are certain that YOUR choices are not being reduced?

Get your head back into the sunshine.

[Wondergirl]

And you are certain that YOUR choices are not being reduced?

Mine have increased and will continue to increase.

[galveston]

Mine have increased and will continue to increase.

When you have govt agents talking about enforced sterilization of women, (one of the czars advocated this in the past), talk of banning big screen TV's, painting roofs white, installing thermostats in your home that can be controlled by bureaucrats, banning black cars (in California), then you stand in real danger of losing your choices.

My health insurance is going up, and I have no choice or voice in the matter. (If the current health care bill passes.)

What choices do you have now that your grandmother did not have?

Did she have choices that you do not have now?

Do you think that everyone should have their need met by government, with everyone contributing what they are able?

[speechlesstx]

Mine have increased and will continue to increase.

Really? With the Dems doing all they can to force the private insurers out of the health insurance business, passing a hate crimes bill that will restrict free speech, cap and trade and who knows what else, you think you'll have more choices?

[Wondergirl]

Really? With the Dems doing all they can to force the private insurers out of the health insurance business

The insurance companies are not in business to help their insureds. I recently was a hospital patient. Considering what the hospital charged and what the insurance company doesn't want to pay... and I'm caught in the middle. THIS system is not working.

[speechlesstx]

The insurance companies are not in business to help their insureds. I recently was a hospital patient. Considering what the hospital charged and what the insurance company doesn't want to pay...........and I'm caught in the middle. THIS system is not working.

Nice deflection.

[paraclete]

The insurance companies are not in business to help their insureds. I recently was a hospital patient. Considering what the hospital charged and what the insurance company doesn't want to pay...........and I'm caught in the middle. THIS system is not working.

That is because "insurance" isn't the ultimate answer to health care. The only people with enough clout to enforce fairness is the government otherwise you have the insurers gaming the system. The government have to have the willingness and ability to regulate the system, both as to costs and benefits. The debate should be about regulation not the government taking over insurers.
You need a system where the patient clearly knows what is covered before any procedure, and if some of the insures have to get bigger so the system works is this a bad thing