08-17-2016, 02:35 AM
(08-16-2016, 10:27 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(08-16-2016, 10:30 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:Would a guy who is 20 years behind the times be directly communicating with you here on the internet? Think about it. I may be 20 years behind the times as far as my writing and typing skills and musical preference . Other wise, I'm pretty much up with the times. I do not know why liberals are so foolish/clueless and continue to attack the views of a fellow taxpayer. A taxpayer who has been around and contributing to roads and schools for years.(08-16-2016, 09:35 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:(08-15-2016, 12:36 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(08-15-2016, 09:29 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: You clearly don't get it. In the Readings according to Saint Reagan, it is revealed that the government cannot solve problems. Attempting to solve problems merely increases corruption and taxation. People who attempt to solve problems are the problem.Has government solved any REAL problems lately? Has government stopped a major flood or a hurricane lately? Reagan was right, government cannot solve problems when it's tied up with its own problems that are related to corruption, the improper use of tax payer money and regulatory powers. The day is coming liberal. The day that you will forced to chose between my values and the ones you've been clinging to your entire life. Are you ignoring Milwaukee or are you adding it to the spiral we've been experiencing as a society. Pardon me for being blunt, I don't want to a politically tainted progressive involved with actual problem solving because they to take a not so good situation or already tense situation and make it worse with their emotional stupidity and lack of sound judgement.
Go solve yourself.
Let's start with the intelligence services and the military -- and a very nasty problem that America had. Osama bin Laden. Barack Obama was flexible enough to recognize that if the ideal of arresting him and hauling him off to New York City to be tried for genocide was not going to happen while he was President (he likely would be a one-term President before the opportunity would arise), he could build trust in the CIA and the military to find a solution. Locate him and whack him, right out of the playbook of Al Capone against a rival mobster. Of course he contemplated world reaction. Russian and Chinese intelligence services and special forces would have done much the same thing.
Problem: a well-funded cult of dedicated terrorists with a reclusive leader. Solution: underworld-style hit because such is all that is available. Osama bin Laden -- dead. Problem solved. Private industry could have never done that.
Let's look at the economic meltdown that began in late 2007 as the housing bubble imploded. Of course the government contributed to that due to the sponsorship of such bubble by the awful George W. Bush. Solution: what FDR did when it was almost too late in 1933 and that Obama did in the equivalent of early 1931 -- back the banks. I'd say that that worked.
...Got a Blood Alley near you, like parts of this highway? The solution is often a freeway segment that diverts would-be speeders away from town or replaces an otherwise dangerous stretch of highway . If you are not willing to cut a deal with a private toll-road company that demands monopolistic pricing, you will need the government. If the government builds a free highway as an alternative to a "Deadman's Curve" it can also obliterate "Deadman's Curve" and ensure that nobody gets killed there again.
The Interstate Highway System has paid for itself in reductions of deaths and crippling injuries from vehicle collisions alone.
...Got mass poverty? Sure we do. We may need a CCC and a WPA to pull Appalachia out of poverty. That will take the government.
...Got a crime wave? The short-term solution is to hire more cops and public-sector attorneys and then have prisons for those convicted and sentenced for crimes. Most crimes are the result of one-person or one-gang crime waves. The private-sector solution is a lynch mob, something that few of us want.
...Disaster relief? On a small scale (lightning starts a fire that burns down your house, or someone veers drunkenly into your lane of traffic and totals your car), insurance can meet the costs. Gigantic disasters? Insurance companies can't handle them. You might as well turn to government to ensure that the little disasters of a big disaster don't escalate into pointless tragedy.
No, government is completely ineffective, a pure waste. just as you say. And breaking into a house with a pair of Dobermans living in it has no bad consequences for you.
Classic is a wannabe talk host but one who is at least 20 years behind the times. His schtick reminds me of hosts I listened to back when I was in the midst of my Hillary / Clinton hating phase.
I'm fine with you contributing your views. But it's not your skills or music that's behind the times, it IS your views. And they are actually quite a bit further behind than 20 years; more like about 5 turnings at least.
We all pay taxes for schools and roads, and we believe in this, but you don't seem to believe that contributing to your nation and your world is important too.
You said that you could accept a Democrats from decades ago, but not a Democrat of today. I saw the rebroadcast of "Reagan" on PBS's American Experience tonight (part 2 is tomorrow night). He asserted in 1964 in his famous speech that he had been a Democrat. Maybe that's what you mean; you see a "real" Democrat as a "Reagan Democrat," like Reagan himself had been. He had been a labor leader, that's true, negotiating contracts for actors; and labor leaders are Democrats. But he fought bitterly with a faction of his union that he accused of communism and fomenting violence back in 1946. He supported blacklisting and the McCarthy committee, which is why his first wife left him; the PBS doc pointed out. Then in about the late 1950s he started hosting the GE Hour on TV, and also became a national spokesman for General Electric and its corporate views on government interference and high taxes. So he was a corporate stooge going back to the late 50s and early 60s. It was a natural progression from his skill as a corporate speaker to his Pro-Goldwater speech in 1964, and the rest is history. Bottom line: Reagan was never much of a Democrat.
Democrats are concerned about helping the disadvantaged, the underdog, the poor, the discriminated against; those going through hard times; those who need a hand up, not just a handout. Which could be you or me. Republicans represent those like Donald Trump or the Koch Brothers who kick people out on the street, who exploit people with low wages and bad working conditions, and who destroy the environment and speculate with the economy. They support gutting social programs for the poor, on the theory that if you then give tax breaks to the rich, business will improve and the benefits will trickle-down, and the poor will either learn self-reliance, or suffer due to their own failure, or their membership in some inferior group. That's what Reagan thought, and that's what he did. But those policies have "died of a theory," just like racism before the Confederacy. They don't work, because if you give the breaks to the already wealthy and powerful, they say thank you very very much, and then pocket the money. There is no trickle; it's a tinkle.