Terrorist Fist Bumps All Around (politics) Thread

by **TomatoPie** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 11:36:15

dajafi wrote:It's also worth noting that we've had this "welfare state" argument probably a half-dozen times, and it always goes the same way: you say some ignorant thing about a culture of dependency and the pansy-assed libburls who perpetuate it; pacino and I--who actually work in this world--explain how it really works; you concede that you don't know what you're talking about; we move on. I guess we could do it again, but really, doesn't everyone have better things to do?

Ummm, my recall of that discussion is a little different than yours.

I think we agree, of course, that we want what is best for the poor persons in America.

I think we agree that self-sufficiency is almost always better than being a ward of the state.

There is an eagerness I've seen in persons of the left to characterize my view (and those of any conservative) as "I've got mine, keep your hands off."

Which is true of some folks who happen to vote GOP, but certainly not me. I'm ready to see my tax dollars spent to lift up those who need it, but only when spent wisely and effectively.

What have you seen from Obama that tells you he gets it? How do you think he felt about the welfare reform that Clinton signed on to, at the time?

I do look for places to expand my view and to find common ground with you, but that never has and never will include your fanciful "concede that you don't know what you're talking about." :lol:

by **dajafi** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 11:48:22

No, you make reference to welfare fraud, dependency, etc without presenting any numbers, and never actually suggest what constitutes "wise and effective" spending.

The problem, which I freely admit I have no immediate or easy solution for, is this: people with lousy education, little or no work experience, and other barriers to employment (anything from no or insufficient childcare to chemical dependency), can be mandated to go to work, but their earning power is low. They don't have much to offer employers. They have to compete with immigrants, young people et al. (One little-discussed effect of welfare reform in the '90s was to flood the low end of the labor market, depressing wages.)

So we can move them off welfare, but for the most part, we can't get them out of poverty. The old idea that "if you work, you shouldn't be poor" is no longer operative: if I'm remembering the numbers correctly, about half of New York City's 1.8 million people below the poverty line live in families with at least one full-time worker. Another third or so lives in households with at least one part-time worker, usually someone who'd like to work full-time but can't get the hours.

Over time, there are ways to move people toward self-sufficiency that have proven successful--interventions that combine education, accumulation of work experience and comprehensive support services. But it's really expensive to do this at scale, and there's neither adequate money nor political will to make that commitment.

So we're left with a welfare system that offers insufficient support, counterproductive incentives (for government, and sometimes for individuals), and little upward mobility. It's better than what preceded it--more consistent with our values--but it isn't good. Except, I guess, as a strawman for arguments like this one.

Obama's statements on welfare reform and writings about his experiences as a community organizer--which mostly focused on jobs for neighborhood residents--pretty clearly set out his position on these questions.

by **jeff2sf** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 12:30:03

dajafi wrote:

Granted that his actions of the last few weeks regarding government spying on Americans have made me a good deal less enthused about him, that action and all the other supposed panders (most of which are actually consistent with things he's said and written for years) indicate a guy who's playing to win.

What was so disheartening? I come from a background where I know off the bat I'm pretty much going to disagree with 30% of whatever my candidate says and I'm still able to maintain enthusiasm. If you'd like, you can also spend some time framing why I should really care about all this retroactive immunity stuff.

by **VoxOrion** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 13:03:45

dajafi wrote:Another way would be to look at the methodology by which the various prominent Democrats suggest solving problems. Clinton and Kerry were/are top-down thinkers who believed that government mandates and intervention were always the way to go. Obama seems to me agnostic as to means. (As his support for a faith-based initiative suggests; perhaps Clinton or Kerry might have spoken about that as well, but with less detail and certainly less credibility. Or is it that when liberals propose non-liberal ideas, they're automatically disqualified as fakers and hypocrites?)

Calling his iniative "faith based" is a red herring - he's offering to give faith based organizations government money if they remove the faith from what they do (i.e. perform a secular and secular only function) and provide the government the ability to supervise hirings. How is this accurately portrayed as a faith-based initiative if the government can instruct the Mormon, for example, to hire a gay married couple to work the food line when that lifestyle goes directly against their constitutionally protected right to have a belief system that goes against the hiring? If you want government money, you have to follow our rules and not your faith's - fair or not (I'm not arguing on that merit), this is hardly "faith based".

This is a typically liberal approach to religion. Maybe not Kucinich (I actually don't know where he stands on religion), and maybe not anyone else, but it's surely not center or right.

Whatever strategist that came up with the Obama platform piece was a genius though. Newspapers were able to run non-partisan sounding headlines about how Obama and Bush agree on something, and the far lefters flipped out over it. It's win win all around because the far lefters won't abandon him and it creates the perception to disaffected sometimes or all the times conservative voters that he's religiously oriented in his politics when he is not.

FWIW - I don't think you're going to find me accusing Obama of being a flip-flopper here, I think you've got that bone to pick with other people. I've said from the start he'll start out left and run center to get elected, I see that has a function of a winning strategy. I don't get any particular jollies out of seeing him "change" or "modify" a position, I expect it.

On health care, he was and is criticized for not calling for mandates. His "behavioral school" economics advisers from the U of Chicago probably wouldn't get much of a hearing among other Democrats.

I don't know enough about this to comment.

by **dajafi** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 13:13:26

I had this discussion recently with an evangelical friend of mine. He offered some of the same concerns, but seemed to believe that churches can draw a line between service delivery (government-fundable) and mission work (not so much).

by **dajafi** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 13:30:56

jeff2sf wrote:
dajafi wrote:

Granted that his actions of the last few weeks regarding government spying on Americans have made me a good deal less enthused about him, that action and all the other supposed panders (most of which are actually consistent with things he's said and written for years) indicate a guy who's playing to win.

What was so disheartening? I come from a background where I know off the bat I'm pretty much going to disagree with 30% of whatever my candidate says and I'm still able to maintain enthusiasm. If you'd like, you can also spend some time framing why I should really care about all this retroactive immunity stuff.

I think this post probably makes both your point and mine better than either of us could, so let's save some time.

by **TomatoPie** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 14:11:36

dajafi wrote:No, you make reference to welfare fraud, dependency, etc

You have me confused, apparently, with one or more other posters.

by **Philly the Kid** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 14:32:35

To all you so called conservatives:

You have no problem with the Feds increasing demand for power? That the tax payers, you and me, are bailing out much of the speculations and vagaries whether sub-prime and other shenanigans or supporting the war-machine? I call that welfare on orders of magnitude that far exceeds (and always has) any of this noise about poor people getting a break or two, or a coupon or small check.

I've seen no commentary here about the legislation just passed (Obama voted for it) giving govt unbridled ability to spy on the citizens?!

All this minutiae about McCain vs. Obama. They are both products of the system, neither will goven in a vacuum, they are beholden to many wealthy and powerful interests in and out of govt circles and both will make speeches and platitudes and then do what they do.

For my tastes, Obama is a safer bet, he's younger less aggro and may be slightly more sympathetic on the surface to the plight of poor. But life will go on as we know it, and th ebig stuff about energy, war, prison industrialization, food labeling regulations, none of the big stuff will be substantially different under either regime. Mccain wants it bad. he's angry at what Bush and that power structure did to him 8 years ago, and he's old and this is his final shot. Obama has transformed himself to a reasonably moderate young and up-n-comer to a totally coached and designed presidential candidate who is trying to distance himself from previous Democratic labels -- he's a man of "faith" and "while he wants to discuss diplomatically he's not afraid to use the big stick".

We won't get natioanl health care or any reigning in of the corproate media, expansion of the private security and military forces, our foreign actions won't change all that much and it will be business as usual.

Since we have only be allowed one thread to discuss all the issues of the day -- how bout someone telling me how they feel about the ACLUs opposition to the legislation that just passed?

Dajafi is correct, Kucinich would be seen as the extreme left in this discussion. Obama is so far in the middle now I can barely tell he's a Dem. And I assure you unlike the Rep who don't ever cow-tow to the Dems or try to compromise, Obama as a Dem will give far more to the Rep than the reverse.

by **pacino** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 14:53:03

less aggro

I hear he's a decent enough poker player, not sure about McCain's style.

by **Woody** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 15:36:51

McCain believes in luck and trying to beat the odds. He laughs in the face of danger

by **VoxOrion** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 15:42:36

Woody wrote:McCain believes in luck and trying to beat the odds. He laughs in the face of danger

FINALLY! The elevator pitch McCain is missing!

by **TomatoPie** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 20:29:34

Robert Smigel anticipates Jesse

by **Woody** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 22:31:10

baha iran sucks at teh photoshop. these guys are supposed to be the axis of evil and they can't even use the clone tool

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/10/ir ... t-pho.html

by **TomatoPie** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 08:37:53

What would Rush do as POTUS?

1. Open the continental shelf to drilling. Ditto the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

2. Establish a 17 percent flat tax.

3. Privatize Social Security.

4. Give parents school vouchers to break the monopoly of public education.

5. Revoke Jimmy Carter’s passport while he is out of the country.

6. Abandon all government policies based on the hoax of man-made global warming.

by **VoxOrion** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 08:47:00

Well, at least it's more conscise than whatever McCain is shopping.

1-4 would probably be much more popular than any candidate/analyst would expect.

by **TomatoPie** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 08:54:05

VoxOrion wrote:Well, at least it's more conscise than whatever McCain is shopping.

1-4 would probably be much more popular than any candidate/analyst would expect.

Eh, #3 is not too popular, even on the right.

Don't mess with my entitlement.

by **VoxOrion** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 08:56:28

3 would sell big with Gen-NotBoomers.

I predict #6 will be popular by 2012.

by **TomatoPie** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 09:10:44

pacino wrote:
Obama's record as the most liberal member of the US Senate is a pretty strong indicator that he will seek to expand the welfare state and repeat all the dramatic failures of LBJ's Great Society.

What does this even mean?

Matt Miller, NPR wrote:Mr. Obama's true audacity (and accomplishment) thus far has been to rebrand liberal goals on health care and economic security as "common sense" reforms behind which all Americans can unite.

You can't criticize Mr. Obama for not taking on antique Democratic thinking when it turned out he could win his party's nod without having to. That's just smart politics. But it won't work any longer.

As the general election takes shape, Mr. Obama now faces the one line of attack he didn't have to deal with in his long battle with Hillary Clinton: the charge that he is an extreme liberal whose tax-and-spend instincts will put America on the road to socialism. ...note the gap between the candidate's post-partisan rhetoric and what they dub his "redistributionist" agenda.

by **TomatoPie** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 09:15:00

VoxOrion wrote:3 would sell big with Gen-NotBoomers.

I predict #6 will be popular by 2012.

I've been ahead of the curve on this fanciful "crisis." Anybody who recalls the chicken little cries about a "New Global Ice Age" (only a scant few years before the envoronmental alarmists decided it was warming, not cooling) should be able to see easily that there is much more agenda than science behind the movement. Yet it's parroted on TV and taught in the classroom as established fact.

I like to think that McCain and even a few Dems knows that it's bull, but they are smart enough to pay lip service until the national sentiment changes. Let Rush and Sean do the dirty work.

by **VoxOrion** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 09:22:15

TomatoPie wrote:I like to think that McCain and even a few Dems knows that it's bull, but they are smart enough to pay lip service until the national sentiment changes. Let Rush and Sean do the dirty work.

I don't believe McCain thinks it's bull or that he has any advanced thoughts on the matter - I believe McCain doesn't give a rats ass about the environmnet (as in, dealing with the excesses of the global warming religion) or most social issues, he's tacked them on because he has to but isn't interested at all.

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Terrorist Fist Bumps All Around (politics) Thread