How to win an argument with Liberals-Progressives-Socialists-etc...

POSTED BY: Wulfenstar
UPDATED: Thursday, June 16, 2011 09:23
VIEWED: 32999
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NIKI2

Friday, June 10, 2011 7:57 PM

Sky, "local townships" coming up with funding is a great idea. Unfortunately, where I live, EVERY school has a board posted somewhere with some kind of cute graphic showing how much they've received in donations. You know, like a thermometer with a goal at the top and filled in with red as the money comes in. They've lost so many programs they're trying to finance and are turning to the population for help. Ergo, government funding isn't doing the job NOW, and we've been hit with so many more cuts in the last year or two, it's falling behind more and more. In other words, they're drumming up as much money as they can NOW to fill the gap, how much more do you think they can get in an economy such as ours currently?

Gawd, the imagination boggles at the concept of schools run by a private enterprise. I won't even go there...the government is doing a poor enough job, and will do less as Republicans work for more and more cuts; the ways in which a private enterprise could screw it up even WORSE (as I assume it would be a for-profit enterprise) are beyond my imagination!

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

SKYDIVELIFE

Friday, June 10, 2011 8:16 PM

Niki2,

I just have a hard time believing that local communities cannot do the job correctly. After all, its their children that they are doing for.

Now in big cities, this might not work as well. Maybe you can set some sort of co-op by block? Create neighborhoods/communities from certain groupings?

From 180th to 190th street is a community?

Could that work?

I've read here that some have a problem with corporations. I agree for the most part in that they are so powerful that they can set the standard.

But, when you look at things like cable companies, internet providers etc.. if they do NOT provide the service you desire... you are free to choose another company.

Why can't that work in terms of education? Or water? Or road management?

DREAMTROVE

Friday, June 10, 2011 8:50 PM

Niki

I was agreeing with Frem

Hardware,

I'd start with the first one.

WULFENSTAR

Friday, June 10, 2011 9:07 PM

In the end, people like Nix argue to be peasants.

Her and their ilk, WANT to be ruled by an "elite".

I just can't stomach it.

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies"

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

Friday, June 10, 2011 9:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Hardware:
I think this will most likely be trunctuated, and I apologize in advance for the length (35 pages in Word.) This is a list of all the offices, committees and commissions in the EXECUTIVE branch. The lists in the Representative and Judicial are equally prodigious.

Yo, Hardware, nice list.

What was the source of it?

And how much did they cheat?

I found AMTRAK listed twice- as AMTRAK and National Passenger Railroad Corp. ( Trains ARE a hobby of mine, a special interest you could say, so I spotted that one.)

And if they organized the list by categories or departments, to eliminate all the duplicate headings and extra double spaces , ( How many times is USDA listed, each time with an extra blank line-- I usedta work in a USDA inspected meat packing plant, so that's another personal special interest of mine, so easy to catch.) the list wouldn't be padded nearly so much.

KPO

Friday, June 10, 2011 9:20 PM

Quote:
Which ones do you think we could do without?

I don't know, amigo. It depends what you mean by 'do without'. As I said above, you and I have different criteria for whether government programmes/offices are worthwhile. If you mean how many from your list could we remove before the country starts to completely fall apart at the seams, I would guess maybe 95% (that's not the same as 95% of funding mind). If you mean how many could we remove without it being detrimental to the country (in more subtle ways), I would say much less. I think all of the committees etc on your list have a theoretical 'raison d'etre'; and most of them are fulfilling some of that, and subtly benefiting society.

It's not personal. It's just war.

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

Friday, June 10, 2011 10:17 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SkyDiveLife:

It seems to me that if schools were run by the local townships, they would be able to drum up the money for it.

Can't speak for the other 49 states, but that was the way it WAS here in California, before Prop 13.
Local communities banded together in school districts, set local property tax rates, financed the schools the way they wanted to, within certain broad federal and state limits. Even then, a lot of the budget money came from the state. Along came Prop 13, capped local communities' ability to raise property taxes. They didn't, and still don't, have a lot of other sources of income under California law. So the state stepped in, gave them tons of money, kept the schools open and functioning. But, "Them that provides the gold, makes the rules." So the state started overseeing things, and making rules and regulations for the schools, not all of which were a good fit to every community.

HARDWARE

Friday, June 10, 2011 11:52 PM

This came from the US government's own website. I copied and pasted into a Word document. If they have it listed twice on two separate pages, then errors definitely could occur.

The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.

...and he that has no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. Luke 22:36

BYTEMITE

Friday, June 10, 2011 11:57 PM

Quote:
cable companies, internet providers etc

Why have either? They are only a constrain on my access to information, especially if they're the censoring sort, and I don't trust them much whatsoever. We're talking real propaganda and thought control here.

I'm all about people finding ways to hook themselves up with whatever they need. I'm talking self-service. Like individualized energy needs, with solarpanels on your house and a small $200 algae biofuel distiller vat in your backyard or garage.

Not so much corporations are ALL bad, they're just a way of organizing. But the big predatory ones that can just squelch all opposition business aren't so good. What motivation do you have to be better than everyone else if you can just afford to market more or buy out anyone who could put up a fight? This is why I like small, and local. Plenty of ways that you can organize within a small local business without creating a monster that can shrug off local economics, incentives, or public outcry.

There are some minor problems I don't agree with regarding the top down organization of corporations, but then I've always been a bit of an anti-authoritarian. Doesn't mean that it's automatically bad, or will become corrupt, though like anything with hierarchical structure, you have to be careful.

TERRAN57

Saturday, June 11, 2011 12:36 AM

SygnyM: Agree with them because their right more than wrong on many levels. "Go suck a smokestack"? What a nasty moron you are. You obviously missed the comment on moderation. Just wait until your 65. In the language of my fathers people, what a chish kish. We choctaws have a way of getting to the point.

For Hardware:
Not trying to poo on your parade, but have you checked the list of organizations under Governor Rick Perry? Would you really want to do away with the NSF (this site is about science and scifi isn't it?), or screw Native peoples again by doing away with the DOI. Now I personally am disgusted by BLM and Forest Service policies forcing people out of "public lands". I can't figure how "public" fits in there. If you never lived in a western state then you wont know what I am talking about. But really, if you truly hate all this spending, then move to Bangledesh where they save all that $$ by having none of them.

No NSF, no Firefly verse, never, just a dead species formerly known as Homo Sapiens on a dead planet, or one thats back in the dark ages where people elevate themselves by divine right as kings, paying no taxes but breaking the backs of peasants. Kinda like David Koch and the richest 1% are doing to us now. The problem is not government but a lack of balance in government. In the 90's we had a great economy, a surplus and when we did involve ourselves in a conflict we kicked butt and came home. George HW Bush and Clinton did not screw us into the ground. In the 2000's, we have wars that could have been won in months, not years, trillions spent for counter-productive killing, thousands of maimed US military personel.

This is the legacy of GW Bush, and the GOP, yet Obama has not cut ties with it either. We still have the patriot act, we still have gitmo, we're still spending money we don't have trying to kill the Taliban, who never threatend us, yet al Queada is alive and well now in Yemen. It's the stupid, stupid, stupid, people who hate everything yet have no suggestions on fixing them, other than screw over the middle class.

As to which of those programs we need? Probably most as all are important to somebody, maybe just not you. But who am I to say that my needs and wants makes yours invalid. Review all those programs, great, but cut military spending by getting out of Islamic crap holes and let them settle their own problems. Put military spending and the tax code back to Clinton levels and then don't give a damn if the guy gets a blow job. Don't put witch hunters like Ken Starr blowing tax payers money for nothing. Or like the GOP hounding a former Oklahoma governor (Walters) until his kid commits suicide, only to find after three years and millions of dollars that the guy committed a misdemeanor.

Bottom line it's all BS and if we don't pull our heads out of our political you know what, then the US is doomed and the rich right wing will build a new aristocracy with people like David Koch at the head, and you and me bud will be peasants pissing in the wind in Chinese robes.

Have a great day

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