03-22-2018, 08:26 PM
(03-22-2018, 06:16 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(03-22-2018, 09:06 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:I'm OK with the idea of community pitching in and helping out the less fortunate. However, I have a problem with so-called liberals making a moral/financial decision like that (can or cannot, willing or not) for me and legally obligating me to it forever with tax laws. I also have a problem with so-called liberals who get pissed, who call people bad names, who associate people with bad terms, associate people with a communist/bad color (Red) because they have the audacity to question/challenge the integrity, the motives, the judgement, the decisions, the legal or moral authority, the knowledge, the obvious conflicts of interest, the corruption and so forth of the so-called liberals/Progressives and the party that they're associated with and pretty much been controlling for years.(03-22-2018, 02:11 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(03-21-2018, 10:46 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I don't like the recent red label of using 'American' to identify their own beliefs. I mean, I can disagree and agree with Eric, but he is no less or more American than Classic. I prefer the conservative or progressive labels. Especially on firearm policy, Classic will profess older values, Eric newer. This does not mean the values are more or less American, particularly.Bob, we have liberal communities and conservative communities within America. As general rule, a conservative community is smaller more closely bonded and tighter knit than the liberal community because the liberal community is larger and has more people coming and going than the conservative community which is why liberals have to preach what the conservatives practice on a regular basis.
Liberals will bind together to form strong communities. Conservatives will be ruggedly independent. Is it American to embrace one trend or the other? I think not. In the old days loners would sit on their own land and do their thing, but some of our great and memorable achievements required teamwork. I wouldn't care to say D-Day or the Moon Shot were not American.
As far as Eric and I go, we don't see eye to eye on any issue that involves America or its future. I do not view Eric as being much of an America. I do not view Eric as being much of a team player as far as America goes either. I've never viewed blues as being much as far as team players either. As long as blues remain the same blues, I don't see any possibility of bridging the divide that exists between blue and red America.
Other than a few great golf shots or a few great tennis matches and Olympic records in individual sports, I can't think of a major achievement or accomplishment that didn't involve a massive amount of team work.
I am coming to equate liberal with the health care difference and the idea that the community can and should help out the unlucky. I see Ben Franklin's ideal of the postal service and paving the streets as pushing the idea early. The government is just a good way for the many to bind together and provide a necessary service. This is not a flash in the pan recent idea. Conservatives would resist government growth, with respectable reason, but health care in particular has become too expensive for many. I would as soon that particular absolute need be under the government umbrella, as many needs.
Some Conservatives are bigots, would as soon deny specific individuals service, and have money enough to think they and thus all should pay their own way and let those who cannot suffer. One result is Nixon's and the Republican's Southern Strategy. Not all Republicans think this way, but some do. I don't think that way is particularly American.
There are lots of ways people think in America. One is that people should help each other and have a government that helps the People. That idea taken to any extreme is called liberal. If so, I am a liberal American.
As far as health care, my healthcare cost is 3-4 times higher than they were before Obama was elected. The affordable healthcare plan that I had before him was eliminated and replaced with a plan that costed twice as much with a deductible that was higher as well. You see, I'm not as fortunate as the less fortunate who are getting premium healthcare for free. BTW, I'm not as fortunate as the less fortunate refugee's who are receiving their healthcare for free either. You claim that you don't believe in freebies. Can you do anything about them, can you stop them without Republicans and Libertarians?
We have a welfare system because the alternative is horrible. We do not want to see people starving or begging on the street. We prefer that people not shoplift just to survive. Sure, it would be possible to eliminate poverty by eliminating the 'dregs' of society, but that would constitute the most hideous of crimes, that is genocide. (The use of the word has been expanded to include murders based upon social class, as in Communist states).
Many people are out of the workforce because of workplace injuries and catastrophic harm to them as military casualties; consigning such people to death by hunger would be unspeakably cruel. People with misfortunes might be out of the workforce due to some treatable ailment.
Medical costs have inflated faster than general costs largely because the medical system fosters monopolies. Obamacare has failed to the extent that it has failed to address the monopolistic conditions in the medical business. I ask you -- how do we deal with that? The politicians in the pay of the monopolists have been successful so far in thwarting any reform of that aspect of the system. As someone who may need disability to survive -- and, yes, I have a work ethic and would prefer work appropriate for my abilities with pay commensurate with my abilities -- I must accept the need of a welfare system.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.