Why are you conservative, why are you liberal, why are you independent?

[PartyOf5]

Welfare can be both a horrific existence designed to entrap people as well as a system that is gamed by some. The "welfare queens" are real and are lazy crooks, stealing from a program originally designed as a way of temporarily helping people out until they can get back on their feet. Politicians (mostly Democrats) have mutated it into a tool to help get votes come election time. Some still only use it as a bridge to get back to a productive life. Others game the system to drain every drop they can from it.

The system is broken, like so many government programs. No one is going to fix it because there is no political gain in doing so.

[clubgop]

No shit. saying that would be progressive heresy, not conservative. TDS has totally short-circuited any working synapses they had.

He is thinking of the caricature of conservatives he has in his head. Since he is so dishonest and lives in a hack bitch bubble he believes the worst things about his fellow Americans. He will make mention of the "welfare queen" how that was us lumping all welfare recipients as living it up while we work our fingers to the bone. Rather it was an indictment of government bureaucracy and their inability and unwillingness to root out waste, fraud, and abuse which was rampant.

Wow, that's some serious retconning that would make Marvel proud. I could dig up decades of quotes from GOP politicians and not a few Democrats vilifying the "welfare Queen" archetype and the lazy generations of leeches.

https://www.nytimes.com/1976/02/15/arch ... e-now.html

“There's a woman in Chicago,” the Republican candidate said recently to an audience in Gilford, N.H., during his freeswinging attack on welfare abuses. “She has 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards and is collecting veterans’ benefits on four nonexisting deceased husbands.” He added:

“And she's collecting Social Security on her cards. She's got Medicaid, getting food stamps and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax‐free cash income alone is over $150,000.”

Mr. Reagan never mentions the woman by name. But the effect is the same wherver he goes. During his second campaign swing through the state last month, for example, he startled people in Dublin and Jaffrey and Peterborough and Salem and in all the other little towns where he appeared. They were angry at “welfare chislers.” Mr. Reagan had hit a nerve.

You could and you would still be wrong. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. Your narrative dies once again, oh look what day is it?


You wore goggles and a spiderman outfit waiting for someone to piss on your narrative, again.

[StCapps]

He is thinking of the caricature of conservatives he has in his head. Since he is so dishonest and lives in a hack bitch bubble he believes the worst things about his fellow Americans. He will make mention of the "welfare queen" how that was us lumping all welfare recipients as living it up while we work our fingers to the bone. Rather it was an indictment of government bureaucracy and their inability and unwillingness to root out waste, fraud, and abuse which was rampant.

Wow, that's some serious retconning that would make Marvel proud. I could dig up decades of quotes from GOP politicians and not a few Democrats vilifying the "welfare Queen" archetype and the lazy generations of leeches.

https://www.nytimes.com/1976/02/15/arch ... e-now.html

“There's a woman in Chicago,” the Republican candidate said recently to an audience in Gilford, N.H., during his freeswinging attack on welfare abuses. “She has 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards and is collecting veterans’ benefits on four nonexisting deceased husbands.” He added:

“And she's collecting Social Security on her cards. She's got Medicaid, getting food stamps and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax‐free cash income alone is over $150,000.”

Mr. Reagan never mentions the woman by name. But the effect is the same wherver he goes. During his second campaign swing through the state last month, for example, he startled people in Dublin and Jaffrey and Peterborough and Salem and in all the other little towns where he appeared. They were angry at “welfare chislers.” Mr. Reagan had hit a nerve.

You could and you would still be wrong. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. Your narrative dies once again, oh look what day is it?


You wore goggles and a spiderman outfit waiting for someone to piss on your narrative, again.

And we did, from a very great height, I might add.

[clubgop]

Wow, that's some serious retconning that would make Marvel proud. I could dig up decades of quotes from GOP politicians and not a few Democrats vilifying the "welfare Queen" archetype and the lazy generations of leeches.

https://www.nytimes.com/1976/02/15/arch ... e-now.html

You could and you would still be wrong. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. Your narrative dies once again, oh look what day is it?


You wore goggles and a spiderman outfit waiting for someone to piss on your narrative, again.

And we did, from a very great height, I might add.

Now that it is a group activity, I fear he may enjoy it too much.

[StCapps]

Trying to act like Welfare Queen's ain't a thing is comical and very deserving of a verbal smackdown.

[BjornP]

Not all humans have such a drive - we seem to have a fundamental disagreement on the nature of humanity

First off Zlaxer, yeah I know now you don’t actually want forced sterilizations and eugenics. The reason I still give you shit about it, is simply because you were using as a sort of counter-argument against public funding for the poor, that the only way you could imagine justify paying taxes that go to the homeless, was if they're sterilized. IOW, that you were making an outlandish and impropable hypothetical condition for something you would never defend under realistic circumstances.

Anyway, yeah we disagree about human nature. Or rather, we disagree about what is nature and what is culture. Human nature is simply everything can do, have done and will do. People can cooperate in thousands of different ways, all of them human nature. Both your and my ideal society are reflections of human nature. To me, only culture and beliefs matter. Humans live human nature by default, no sense wasting time pondering it.

I'm not advocating sterilization of the disabled - nor do I begrudge keeping them above the poverty line - in today's society, most disabled can attain high paying jobs - but the system is abused by far more people who are not truly disabled than the number of people who truly need help

I don't know enough about the US welfare system to judge what you say, but if there is widespread fraud, is that really a good argument against *any* sort of welfare? Some rich people cheat on taxes and bribe colleges, should society then force all the rich to pay 90% income taxes or eliminate all forms of tax deductibles?

If the flaw is the system, fix the system.

forced charity is not "gifting" - it's forced redistribution - it is not the role of the state to empower people - it is for the people to do themselves - the state's job is to make the rules of the game fair as best it can, not to force equal outcomes

You also forcefully redistribute to military, to law enforcement, to the federal government.

The welfare state is you, the citizen. The state is your property. The state is the brick and mortar, but it is animated by the Nation, it is the living nation that turns those bricks and mortar into a home.The idea of the State as this "other" thing, that should do "its" thing and leave you alone to do yours, is what creates governments that don't give a shit about the people. Because you leave them alone to do "their" thing...

With your money. With your children, parents and friends. All built on the assumption that it should be it's own thing. It's yours.

It is thus not really "the state" in the sense of some Great Other, that empowers poor or sick people in the Danish welfare state. It is the social workers, the volunteer organisations that work for the state, ergo they work for us, the Nation. Individuals, iow. But above all, it is the poor themselves that empower themselves, it is help to self-help. There are people who need help to pick themselves up from the dirt.

That Danes consider this both our civic duty to one another and something most of us gladly pay our taxes for, is however not an argument for why *you* should do it. Cultures are different. Especially if the welfare fraud mentality is as prevalent as you suggest, it makes little sense to copy us. It works for us. Not without abuse cases, but that’s more local government letting private businesses exploit welfare recipients for above the legal three months free (for the company) labor.

[StCapps]

If the flaw is the system, fix the system.

You also forcefully redistribute to military, to law enforcement, to the federal government.

The welfare state is you, the citizen. The state is your property. The state is the brick and mortar, but it is animated by the Nation, it is the living nation that turns those bricks and mortar into a home.The idea of the State as this "other" thing, that should do "its" thing and leave you alone to do yours, is what creates governments that don't give a shit about the people. Because you leave them alone to do "their" thing...

With your money. With your children, parents and friends. All built on the assumption that it should be it's own thing. It's yours.

It is thus not really "the state" in the sense of some Great Other, that empowers poor or sick people in the Danish welfare state. It is the social workers, the volunteer organisations that work for the state, ergo they work for us, the Nation. Individuals, iow. But above all, it is the poor themselves that empower themselves, it is help to self-help. There are people who need help to pick themselves up from the dirt.

That Danes consider this both our civic duty to one another and something most of us gladly pay our taxes for, is however not an argument for why *you* should do it. Cultures are different. Especially if the welfare fraud mentality is as prevalent as you suggest, it makes little sense to copy us. It works for us. Not without abuse cases, but that’s more local government letting private businesses exploit welfare recipients for above the legal three months free (for the company) labor.

I would question just how helpful the Danish Welfare System is in raising the standard of living of Danes. Danish Americans live better than Danes in Denmark, despite living with an American welfare system that works worse than the Danish system.

Clearly you Danes put too much faith in the welfare system and state in general, to improve the lives of your citizens, if y'all happen think that is one of the major reasons y'all are so wealthy, because the data does not show that to be the case. Like you say, it's the self help, not the welfare state.

The state does not empower the poor or the sick, it holds them back. There might be a few people in the short term who more government intervention is beneficial to, and even less people in the long term who more government intervention is beneficial to, but in general this is simply not the case, it's a wishful thinking pipe dream, even in Denmark. Y'all might gladly see it as your civic duty and would gladly pay higher taxes to prop it up, but that doesn't mean it's a net positive, it just means y'all think it is.

The government is not the people, people work for the government, it is some Great Other, because government intervention often does more damage than it repairs, especially when it comes to welfare.

[BjornP]

Y'all might gladly see it as your civic duty and would gladly pay higher taxes to prop it up, but that doesn't mean it's a net positive, it just means y'all think it is.

Meaningless sentence, Capps.

On the subject of our values: If we all think it's a positive, then obviously it IS a positive.

[StCapps]

Y'all might gladly see it as your civic duty and would gladly pay higher taxes to prop it up, but that doesn't mean it's a net positive, it just means y'all think it is.

Meaningless sentence, Capps.

On the subject of our values: If we all think it's a positive, then obviously it IS a positive.

Lulz, you can be wrong, that's totally a possibility.

Facts don't care about your feelings Denmark.

Just because something is popular doesn't make it good.

Note how BjornP cherry picks one sentence he thinks he can make hay with, while ignoring the rest of the argument, and he still got owned. Sad.

[BjornP]

Y'all might gladly see it as your civic duty and would gladly pay higher taxes to prop it up, but that doesn't mean it's a net positive, it just means y'all think it is.

Meaningless sentence, Capps.

On the subject of our values: If we all think it's a positive, then obviously it IS a positive.

Lulz, you can be wrong, that's totally a possibility.

Facts don't care about your feelings Denmark.

Just because something is popular doesn't make it good.

Note how BjornP cherry picks one sentence he thinks he can make hay with, while ignoring the rest of the argument, and he still got owned. Sad.

Who are you talking to? Anyway, the reason I don’t see a reason to respond to the rest of your post is that there was nothing to respond to that won't simply be me repeating myself.

As for "facts don't care about feelings"? You were not talking facts in the post I replied to, you were talking about and I replied to your talk of positives. You like what you like. It would be meaningless for me to reply to you saying: "I like Catholic school girl uniforms" with a "Well, that's what you like but what are the facts, hmmmm? ".