All your reasons why being left wing is so much better than being conservative.

Any program or legislation, tax funded or otherwise, that addresses apparent social inequities. Labor laws, Social Security, Medicare, The Department of Education, Welfare - bloated? yes abused? certainly SSI, Medicare and Welfare have been, but these are necessary programs that no amount of tax relief (especially for the wealthy) will compensate. The GOP seems to be hell bent on gutting them, but I have yet to hear a single republican propose an alternative. The need exists, it's not going away. Ron Paul would place the burden of poverty squarely on the shoulders of religious charity. But how do you justify that in a nation with such wealth? of such allegedly ample opportunity?

Tell me how you expect an ambitious and intelligent youth living in a ghetto, or in appalachia (oh I can here the chuckles and the wink/winks echoing from the Hamptons as I write this) to navigate his/her way through crime/poverty stricken high school and into a university on a Wal-Mart salary? Have you been to a college book store lately? Let's say he's one of the three students in his/her highschool who manages to get one of the three scholarships available to his poor man's high school. There a drop in the bucket and that's if he/she can afford the fees to submit a college application in the first place. Then he/she's faced with room and board at a residence hall that he/she is required to live in. Oh and don't forget the required laptop and obligatory relevant software (yep, now required in many majors), vaccinations, registration fees. Nevermind the fierce competition for campus employment. Ah, but the poor bastard who might have cured cancer or helped to design a revolutionary clean energy device said "fuck it - this is bullshit. I'm gonna sell weed to my equally disillusioned socioeconomic peers."

Tell me how you expect a senior citizen, whose prescription medication would easily take up half of his/her monthly income, to manage to pay for utilities or rent and still eat, if medicare stopped subsidizing the pharmacartel and the whimsical cost structure of health care in this country? Maybe we should just euthanize them? While we're at it, why don't we just do the same with our mentally ill? Or, we could hop over the GOP stonewall and come up with a national healthcare plan that wasn't drafted by the health insurance lobby.

Yes I'm a bleeding heart liberal in that way, but I'm not ignorant of the social justice program abuses and I've seen that first hand, and they need to be addressed right now, this instant. Nor am I ignorant of the fact that the left has it's right hand in the pocket of these same lobbyists. But Gutting these programs or doing away them entirely is just plain fucking stupid, evil and insane, and the consequences would make the civil war look like a maypole dance. But these are the not too subtle intimations in the talking points I hear coming from the pundits at the mouth peice of the GOP, Faux, and the GOPs own election year war room.

Bottom line, the scale is tipping dangerously to one side, the 1% side, and there will be a correction, a balance will be achieved. Political ideologies be damned. It can be civil, peaceful and democraticish, or it can be ugly, violent, and dystopianish - but that gap will be bridged, and those inequities will be addressed in a very real and guttural manner. And no amount of scoffing at the concept of social justice is going to make it go away. Let me assure you that there are ever increasing numbers of people to the far left and right who are gnashing their teeth, bloodlusting and preparing for the latter. Which version do you want your children to inherit?

 

I see how such programs can be called "social programs", but find inserting the word "justice" unjustifiable except as a means of trying to make them more acceptable emotionally or to be seen as an entitlement as is the case of Social Security and Medicare, which although recipients who paid into the plans are entitled to partake from even though they are becoming unsustainable without modification.

Bottom line, in my opinion, is that the Federal government has never received consent from the governed to implement many if not most of the social programs that are funded simply by tax revenues and debt for which future taxpaying workers primarily will be held responsible for.
To call the U.S. a Nation of wealth totally ignores the balance sheet taking into account Federal, State and local debts, and future unfunded liabilities, even if government were to confiscate all the wealth of all the citizens, both rich and poor to enter as assets.

 

????

Of course they received consent - we elect the consent(ers) aka legislators and they take their marching orders from powerful lobbies - some social justice lobbies and many more (much better funded) private sector industry lobbies - and pay everyone lip service during election years. Technically, our government never received consent from the governed to implement the Federal Reserve Act, but here we are borrowing (imaginary) money plus interest from an unidentified cartel of banks to fund everything this government does and come tax season, people are signing their checks to the Department of the Treasury and thinking that their tax money is actually going to the Treasury?

When you use the word "consent" you make me think of a democratic government - we do not live in a democratic government. This is (supposedly) a representative republic - which is democratic - ish. But here's the thing most people fail to understand. Your legislator is not bound by any laws to vote on or propose legislation that represent the will of the majority of the people who elected him/her. The theory is, that if he/she doesn't, he'll be replaced in the next election by someone who does, but here's the kicker - they never do. Mr. Smith will never go to Washington. Why? You have to pay to play, and Mr. Smith can only afford to play if the wealthy businesses and organizations that finance his/her campaign get most of their attention. They're the ones who matter - now that's fine and dandy if this business or organization represents the majorities' best interest, but what if it doesn't? Guess what? It frequently doesn't - hence social injustice and inequity. Our government's private sector directives are to keep the masses just poor, free and acquiescent enough to keep on trudging without too much complaint, but every once in a while, the plutocracy likes to see how far they can push the serfs, and maybe lately, they've pushed a little too far.

Here's another kicker: only 24 states require by law that the "electors" of the electoral college actually vote in accordance with the popular vote - but even so, the law only punishes the faithless elector after the fact. "Bad, faithless elector! Oh well, say hello to your new non-popularly elected President. Sorry your vote didn't count for anything this time - maybe next time."

Sound fishy to you? It should.

Here's an interesting statistic: a http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-sr.../independents/post-kaiser-harvard-topline.pdf 2007 poll found that 72% favored replacing the Electoral College with a direct election, including 78% of Democrats, 60% of Republicans, and 73% of independent voters. Polls dating back to 1944 have shown a consistent majority of the public supporting a direct vote.

So if a majority of us want direct elections, why don't we have them? We certainly have the ability.

 

Our elected representatives to office in the Federal government are bound by the Constitution, which both parties have quite cleverly manipulated through interpretation to covertly achieve their agendas.

State laws can be changed by the citizens of those States, if they demand it. It's bad enough that the Constitution was changed to allow direct election of the Senators, which along with the change allowing the Federal government to directly tax income pretty much eliminated the States from having a voice in the Federal government eliminating them from being a check upon the Federal government.

Neither the majority nor the minority should rule over the other and the law under which the Federal government derives its' powers, the Constitution, represents what both the people and the States consent to giving up by a large majority.

 

The Constitution is a document (it was also a compromise among men with a wide range of political ideologies, but with common purpose - a novel concept in this day and age). Like any man made object, it will, by its very nature, be subject to interpretation, adaption and manipulation. This has been the case since the day it was drafted.

 

Jamgrassphan---You've got it completely surrounded. Nice going. Rooseveldt saw the need for the CCC ,the WPA and other programs after Hoover went fishing and ignored the crisis in this country. They did a lot of good building bridges,fixing roads,campgrounds and most importantly,kept the nation from going up in flames by providing work for many,many men that had nowhere to look for relief,no way to feed their families and no jobs. Not many today(the ones that could do something progressive) seem to see the need for some relief from the bank-wall street-political-rip-off we are going thru now,except us-the ones with no or not enough power to do anything about the situation in which we find ourselves. Limbaugh discussed Rooseveldt's programs one time(I heard him say it) and said to a ditto-head that was complaining about some of the remnants of those programs ,SSI,etc---"yes ,and we're trying to do something about them now".
I agree with your prediction. I mean,how much will a people take from "their" government before the fan receives a large load of poop?

 

Scratcho, your history sounds like something out of a 3rd grade history text book written 20 years ago. It quite pathetically misrepresents the facts almost entirely across the board. If only Herbert Hoover actually fit your description, we might have never had a great depression. Hoover was just as big of an interventionist as his successor FDR. He signed into law the Hawley-Smoot Tarriff act, in addition to promoting businesses to prop up wages. He also engaged in massive public works projects. He rejected the Coolidge / Melon imperative of not intervening in the economy. A simple glance at the budget numbers during that period will show you he ran up unprecedented deficits to fund his big government ideals throughout his entire term. His public works programs were later expanded by FDR into what we know as "The New Deal". Many of the policies during the great depression can be compared to the policies being implemented now by Barrak Obama. It's no coincidence that the two slowest economic recoveries in our history were also the ones met with the most government intervention.

I'm not sure if you've seen my link on the other thread, but it clearly shows that poverty rates were actually plummeting long before your beloved SSI and other programs ever received significant amounts of funding. And since they did, theyve been entirely stagnate. Your programs that "need" to be in place have had absolutely zero effect on the level of poverty in our country, regardless of how much money they've poored into them. And that just one side of the coin too! You have to also look at where the government is getting all this money! Anytime you seize wealth from people, through taxes or however, you're lessening those people's incentives to produce that wealth. If you owned a gas station, worked hard everyday to maintain and run it, yet at the end of each week you got robbed of all your earnings, how long would you keep that gas station in operation? This is simple economic law. The more of a burden the government places on an economy, the less productive it becomes. I could cite you literally tons and tons of examples on both sides of the spectrum. But mainly, you need to relearn your history, because you're wayyyy wayyy off base

 

To paraphrase jamgrassphan,

"Like any man made object, history, by its very nature, will be subject to interpretation, adaption and manipulation. This has been the case since the day history has been recorded, rewritten, and taught."

The ONLY reason I can come up with to explain how being Left wing might be described as better than being conservative is that the Left exempts the individual from having to accept any responsibility when things go wrong.

 

Quote:The great depression was a stern test for Hoover's approach and one that proved too difficult to manage, His VOLUNTARIST inspired aproach and programs like the Hawley-Smoot tariff bill that Hoover signed,retarded growth and recovery by raising tariffs and stiffling international trade. His agricultural marketing act had little affect on the prospects of american farmers. Hoover eventually did support some interventionist programs aimed at combating the depression.
The Reconstruction Finance Corporation used federal money in an ultimately unsuccessfull effort to stabilize the nation's banking & financial sector. The RFC was aimed at THE CORPORATATE SECTOR RATHER THAN THE GROWING RANKS OF THE SUFFERING POOR. Fearing that government aid would breed a sense of dependence among the poor,Hoover largely refused TO EXTEND SUCH ASSISTANCE TO MILLIONS OF THE NATIONS UNEMPLOYED AND HUNGRY, who were OVERWHELMING private relief agencies.
In the public eye,Hoover seemed uncaring and unwilling to admit that people were starving and his ideas failing.

Just a little 3rd grade history.

 

Your quote does absolutely nothing but prove my point. Your original statement was that Herbert Hoover went fishing and "ignored the crisis of the country". That was your original statement correct? You're quote mentions several interventions into the economy, including protectionist policies, agriculture acts, some kind of Reconstruction Finance Corporation (which sounds suspiciously like bailouts), and yes it's true that his program to prop up wages was largely voluntarist, however there is plenty of historical evidence that shows it's effectiveness. If you look at the real wage rates compared to the CPI over his term, there is a very large disparity in how much they each fell. Also, there are several publications from major business leaders vouching their support for the policy. So, just because he didn't actually force businesses to keep their wages high, doesn't mean that it didn't have the desired effect. The economist Richard Vedder did extensive work on the subject.

So your new point is that because he didn't do more to "extend assistance" to the country's poor, that is why he did not bring on a hasty recovery? Which both FDR, and Barrak Obama have done and neither of which did anything for the economy. Except, maybe make it worse. Lets not forget that throughout the majority of the great depression it was FDR's policies that reigned supreme. Most economic recoveries, throughout our nations history take less than 18 months, not 10 years. Everything you've said fits my narrative perfectly. The biggest expansion of food stamps, as well as unemployment benefits in history has happend under Barrak Obama, and yet the U6 unemployment numbers are still hovering around 15%. If what needed to be done was more assistance to the poor, than how do you explain that?

Now lets look at a situation where the president, as well as the federal reserve truly did do nothing (except maybe "go fishing"). The depression of 1920-1921. The country was faced with record inflation and debt with the end of world war 1 and Woodrow Wilson almost running the country into the ground with his progressive agenda. There was a stock market crash, as well extremely high unemployment numbers, and yet... after 13 short months, we were entirely recovered. The Harding administration went the opposite way of Hoover, FDR, and Obama. There was record DEFLATION during his term, no public works programs, no stimulus packages, no 'argiculture acts', no governmental outreachs to the poor, absolutely nothing that would divert precious resources away from the private sector and into the wasteful governmental sector. Wages and prices were allowed to fall naturally according to the free market, and we were back on our feet in no time. These non-intervention policies eventually gave us "The Roaring 20's" where standards of living sky rocketed and the country had one of it's biggest booms in history. So instead of the lost decade we experienced under you're big government advocates Hoover, and FDR... we had a speedy recovery, we paid back our national debt, and it led to 10 of the best years our country ever had.

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