College Students Favoring Wealth Distribution Are Asked.....

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The same Republicans who held not only our country, but the entire planet hostage with their ridiculous gimmick of refusing to renew the START treaty which ensures the security of the massive Russian nuclear stockpiles?

It does not matter what else they have done before or since. Anyone capable of participating in such an absurdly dangerous gamble just to score cheap political points and a little more pork barrel spending for themselves is not fit to participate in government in any capacity. Risking the proliferation of loose nukes is the most profoundly irresponsible thing it could have been possible to do- and the Republicans all jumped to do it. They are children. They do not belong in government until they can understand that their actions have real consequences and learn to put aside this kind of petty drama.

Why would you keep reminding us of this? Bread is still cheap. Only a few more months to go, but I don't expect to see any significant change.

No, I meant the general public regardless of political affiliation.

To sum up either comment section:

MSNBC: Those redneck teabaggers are to stoopid to see what's really going on
Fox: Those whiny libral p*ssies want to take are money and are guns

(misspellings are intentional)

And Wegman's is still enforcing their price freeze on staples.

The START treaty wasn't as rosy as you are stating and you know it.

For Example:

...America also needs to get rid of as many as 150 delivery vehicles (e.g., missiles and bombers) to reach the 700 limit stipulated in the pact. Oddly, Russia can add more than 130 platforms under New START.

Besides the peculiarity of allowing Russia to build up, the drawdown on our side could have an effect on our ability to fight conventional wars using these weapons in places such as the Korean Peninsula.
...
http://thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/118523 ... -bad-start

How is the Russians being able to add more than 130 platforms for nuclear weapons adding to our National Security?

MSNBC devotes at least 15 hours a week to spewing GOP talking points (ie: Morning Joe). Several left-wing hosts on MSNBC- even on shows that were clearly labeled as editorial rather than news- have been kicked off the air for being too liberal, even though none of them have ever gone nearly as far out to the fringe as people like Beck or Hannity at Fox. It is universally acknowledged that the prime example of a progressive host on MSNBC (Rachel Maddow) has to tiptoe about and watch her words to avoid falling to the left of the allowable lines. This notion that MSNBC is some sort of leftist propaganda outlet is bogus, perpetuated only out of a misguided desire to paint a false equivalence between left and right in this country. They are not equivalent, and we need to stop pretending that they are.

We obviously had/have a lot more nukes and other weapons sitting around than the Russians. We did a massive build-up in the 80s and have never really drawn down all that much. As to how it enhances national security- you really don't think it's a good idea for us to be able to keep tabs on Russia's nuclear capabilities? Governments in Eastern Europe are not known for being either stable or honest. If we leave them entirely to their own devices, we could quite easily see a nuke falling into the hands of terrorists.

Also explains why conventional weapons that don't have a nuclear warhead count towards our nuclear arsenal...

ICBMs are hardly considered "conventional" weapons. Besides, Russia also has ICBM limitations spelled out in the treaty.

When you demonize the downtrodden by exaggerating how many luxuries they have, and how much alcohol they purchase, it gets hard to believe you see the possibility of starvation. If you can't see it, you can't be interested in preventing it, and you certainly are going to underestimate the cost it takes to prevent it. Basically, as long as that rhetoric continues, which you've already agreed is an exaggeration, it will be assumed you don't care. The exaggeration and rhetoric is destructive, because it pisses off voters enough to blind them to the truth. Do you know how many voters believe it? Seriously believe that all welfare recipients are sitting in front of big screen TV's and spending their checks on crack? If you want people to understand what you really mean, you've got to drop the rhetoric and talk as you have here. I know that language goes over well rallying the troops for people like Limbaugh, but it IS destructive and it interferes with intelligent dialogue.



We all know cuts have to be made. We totally get the math. Very much. But we do have to keep the promises that have been made domestically and internationally, and it simply is not possible to cut deep enough to solve the deficit, without negative side effects to the economy. It also gets very difficult to pick which entitlements to end, because no one thinks "their" entitlement is an entitlement. Talk to seniors about social security, or to homeowners about the mortgage interest deduction, and you have a riot on your hands, but BOTH are actually entitlements. It isn't politically viable to touch them. Until voters accept their part in it, it won't ever be. So it all has to be done in baby steps. It isn't going to happen overnight, but everyone I ever talk to in real life, my entire social and professional circle, knows it has to happen. Cuts to social security and the mortgage interest deduction included.



Well, here is where we most strongly part ways. We see the same problem, but not the same solution. I see the heroic players and the foolish ones differently. We will not succeed in reducing spending enough. It is not politically feasible to make the cuts that need to be made, as I noted previously, and the Tea Party is in a bit of denial about that.

In my opinion, there is no reason to stick with the disastrous Bush, Jr., tax cuts. He came up with those first to give back the surplus, and then when that disappeared he said it was stimulus. Well, that stimulus didn't really work, either, and we're stuck with a taxation system that wasn't enough to pay expenses when it was adopted, and still isn't enough. Until it gets rolled back, it is not possible to get a sound budget. Everyone sees some obvious way to cut expenses, but there is no uniform agreement on what that obvious way is. If there were, I promise, we would have done it. This wouldn't be raising taxes, it would be allowing a temporary tax cut to expire when it was meant to expire, but the Tea Party refuses to see it that way.



That would be great if enough money went into local charities, but it doesn't. Programs are closing left and right. Good programs, that really contributed value to the community. You can't count on people to accurately assess the need and then to selflessly try to meet it.

Right now school systems in my area, and services for the needy, are getting by solely because of super hero volunteers. I've just spent 7 years being one, working somewhere near full time for the school, while also having a paid job, kids and a home ... it isn't sustainable. I am dead tired, and I need to make some real money, maybe save for my kid's college, and maybe even save for my own retirement (frighteningly close and no where well enough funded because I've been too busy answering calls for help). I have backed off from all the volunteering this year. Everything I did was supposed to be temporary, an investment, something that pushed a rock down the hill, after which it would pick up momentum and gather moss. Well, the rocks did roll, but it continues to take super hero volunteers to push them further. I'm sorry, but the community is running out of super heros. To base safety nets, education, health care and other essentials on them is foolish. It just isn't sustainable.

Do you know how much effort goes into deciding where our charity dollars go? God, the calls we get. The mail we get. And most of them deserving, but how do we know which is efficient at distributing their funds? They all have overhead, too, and I don't want to donate and then find out 80 percent went out to paid fundraisers because they were "building" their donor base. I've had that happen. And then you think you've donated to support Veterans, only to find out there isn't just one charity supporting veterans, but 20, each with a focused mission. Who on earth has time to sort all that out and really decide the best place to put their dollars? I want to support them all, but I don't have the TIME to figure out how to do it. It is totally overwhelming. And I am far from the only donor who feels that way.

I really would rather just pay my taxes and know it is taken care of. Pay my taxes and enjoy my weekend with my kids instead of working on fundraising from my computer. Pay my taxes and not worry if the school will have paper next year. Pay my taxes and know that a toddler diagnosed with Autism can get the recommended services. Pay my taxes and know that the most disabled members on this site will have enough money to have lives of meaning. I know government is ridiculously inefficient, but so is asking people like me to take care of it on our own, through charity. Our lives get so complicated so quickly, so many voices asking for help, too many choices to make. Tax is so much simpler. I've already had to become an expert on school budgets, silent auction marketing, school fundraising, autism issues, and more. I'm too dang tired to learn about more issues and solve them. I don't want to be an expert on everything, and neither do the other people I know. I really just want to pay my taxes and have someone else do it.

And that is why the working rich aren't in the Tea Party, by and large. Or at least the ones who care about the need around them. You guys are fighting to keep their taxes low when they would rather just pay them.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 22 Aug 2011, 8:36 am, edited 3 times in total.

In your little "experiment", do the 4.0 GPA students get graded on a different scale just because they have a 4.0 GPA in order to ensure that they keep their 4.0 GPA?

Because in the real world, the rich are taxed at a far lower rate than their secretaries just because they are rich and can afford to lobby the government for special "capital gains" rates and tax loopholes for private jets.

Yeah... I mean, Inuyasha, I've actually come to the same conclusion as you have in the past on a few positions, and have defended markets in multiple areas on the forum, so.... what? Was I not brainwashed by left-wing dogma then??

Even further, I don't identify any of those people as incompetent morons.(Maybe a matter of being a moron myself) As a general rule, I do consider Orwell and Master_Pedant to be very intelligent and informed people simply from past interactions with them.

QFT


QFT

Though we may disagree about things, my opinion of you just went up.

Thank you for actually answering my question.

I see how a 7.0 cap fits your interpretation better, but I don't see how it changes grades into currency. My fundamental point, though, was that so many people have absolutely ridiculed the analogy for various reasons; if those reasons were enough to debunk the original analogy, I can't see why they would not also debunk the tweaked analogy as well.

Because most of the arguments against it can be cured with changes in the facts. Not that grades ever will be changed in any of those ways, and as long as they aren't, the comparison doesn't work. But if you could make those major changes, it becomes a lot more interesting.

The whole test was derived to prove a point, and it was intentionally misleading because there was a result the author wanted to achieve. This analogy wasn't devised to be real, it was devised to be propaganda, to make a point. But I can actually see ways to change the scenario and make it valid, ie a lot closer to what happens in a social welfare situation, and I've posted some of them. Just ... the authors aren't interested in that, now are they? When we talk about how a few changes might make more people more willing to share grade points, no one on the other side wants to pursue the line of discussion, do they?

The devil is usually in the details. Change the details, and you change the equation.

PS - the tweak specifically included other changes specific to open transferability of grade points for a variety of reasons, to balance out various of your courses, or to help a relative. That is why the grades become more like currency.

Sorry for the gloppy English. Tired. Out of time. Too much going on ...

Awe-shucks!! !

Anyway, if Inuyasha wants to see a distribution of economic views between some of the people listed, it'd go like this on economic policy:


-----Master_Pedant----------------------------------------------------------------------------Orwell---------------------------------------Awesomelyglorious

Left -------> Right