"Send Her Back!"
- Thread starter DaShuckster
- Start date
yes id rather people have their own retirement plans instead of social security.
you cant have a country without a military to defend its borders or its people. this is just a stupid argument from you. im all for reducing the spending we give to our military. i dont care of the va at all, and would consider removing it all together.
im ok with disaster relief, as disasters can happen to entire regions not just states. i would prefer more of it be done with charitable donations but if need be the state level. fed for large scale disasters. but keep it very limited in scope.
again im ok with the classical liberalism model with the addition of k-12 education.
this is really not that hard.
There are plenty of countries with no military at all, plenty with no standing military, and some with basically a glorified police force, but not really a military. So you certainly can have a country without a standing military, Unless you dont consider Costa Rica, Panama, Iceland, etc etc countries. So maybe not so stupid an argument on my behalf, maybe I just know things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_without_armed_forces
Convenient you are for disaster relief knowing that you live in a state that deals with disasters rather frequently. Regardless, you aren't for getting rid of socialism, so might as well stop with that charade. You are just against socialism you don't like.
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The easiest way to identify a socialist is if they say that having police is a socialist policy. They use that as a pseudo-strawman argument to make everyone who isn't in favor of all government involvement seem like anarchists. The same goes for the military. When each person benefits equally from a government service then it is not socialism. When it benefits some people more than others, it is.yes id rather people have their own retirement plans instead of social security.
you cant have a country without a military to defend its borders or its people. this is just a stupid argument from you. im all for reducing the spending we give to our military. i dont care of the va at all, and would consider removing it all together.
im ok with disaster relief, as disasters can happen to entire regions not just states. i would prefer more of it be done with charitable donations but if need be the state level. fed for large scale disasters. but keep it very limited in scope.
again im ok with the classical liberalism model with the addition of k-12 education.
this is really not that hard.
Of course it is socialism. Democratic Socialism (which is what most American's mean when talking about socialism) has nothing to do with who benefits from it. It has to do with the method of which it is funded. And in theory, everyone can benefit from the programs under certain conditions.
When someone says they want socialism out of our country, it is more than fair and practical to bring up specific programs which are essentially socialist programs, and ask if they want to get rid of them.
Democratic socialism is not a thing. It's populist authoritarianism and nothing more. It just sounds better when you don't include the word authoritarianism.
If you are in favor of using the power of the federal government to force an individual to participate in a government program, you are an authoritarian. Medicare for all is a perfect example. Social security is somewhat lower on the spectrum.
Why is social security lower on the spectrum? Because you like it more and it is more popular?
Democratic socialism is no more authoritarian than the Oligarchy we have basically have now.
And I am honestly not trying to debate the merits of individual programs, and I think it is fine to like some programs and dislike others. But my point, is when someone says we need to remove socialism from the country, it is fair game to ask to what extent. And typically when you start asking those questions, you realize people aren't necessarily against the idea of socialism, just against programs they don't like.
Just a hunch, probably because most hard working people with a real job have paid 6 figures into it.......
Social security is lower on the spectrum because there are limits on contributions based on income and limits on benefits based on what was paid in. I don't like it any more than I like Medicare for all, but one is much further down the spectrum objectively speaking.
But there are people who end up collecting more than they paid in. If you are truly against socialism then would you want to rid of SS and just tell everyone they are on their own for their retirement?
Generally speaking yes, But to be 100% honest after paying in enough over my career to buy a small house I would not be inclined to forgo the benefits I am due
I think that would basically ruin a lot of people's later years, but I appreciate the honestly.
i didnt really see any 1st world countries on there and not to mention we are basically the world police and keep most countries in line. you are playing a stupid semantic game.
id be ok with the disaster relief if i lived in wyoming, im not heartless. but again its gotta be very limited in scope, much more so than what we have now. id prefer most was done by orgs like red cross.
one thing you are right about, not much is going to change. only thing i do is vote for people who will try to limit it as best possible.
It would be hard for many, what is sad that so many live for today and don't plan for their later years
I am not playing a semantic game at all, and Iceland is most certainly a 1st world country. In reality our military isn't even used to protect our borders at this point.
I don't think that is necessarily the case. But you also have to consider that you don't really know how much money you will need later in life. No one knows how long they will live, what type of medical expenses they will have, etc etc. Someone making a middle class income, who works hard, saves money etc, is still going to have a difficult time saving up money live on for 20-30 years and to pay for insurance for that long after they retire.
It isn't semantics at all. You quite clearly stated we needed a military to protect our borders. I am pointing out, our military doesn't even really protect our borders now. That isn't semantics, that is reality.
100% disagree, there are some very comprehensive retirement calculators that take into account all the required expenses as well as discretionary expenses and factor in inherent risks, inflation, and other COLAs. Most are based on models that can be tweaked for such variables and plot projected requirements based upon different levels of risk. There are plenty of people who have adequately planned for and are living comfortably in retirement......
See we just fundamentally disagree here then. In the hierarchy of needs we all start with the same things and as the hierarchy grows the divergencd happens. Where that happens differs but they all stem from the same initial place. To look at another human being and not think that end of the day they still crave the same FUNDAMENTAL tenants of love, halline, purpose etc is wrong thinking. Of course the struggle is always how you go about that especially when trying to manage a society but you absolutely have to start at the human level. If you can't even do that with even the person you disagree with the most then what is the point of any of this? It is absolutely a doomed proposition from the jump and we might as well jump straight ahead to a ruling class that gets to compel what is acceptable.
How could one even argue that the preferred starting point should not be one of fundamental common ground and then work from there. How can it be argued that the correct position is to engage with another as if they're you're enemy. How can one make a case that it would lead to a peaceful resolution? Say what you want ab this board not being real life but its a shining example.
Of course there are plenty of people living comfortably in retirement, but they are also receiving social security and medicare. I am saying if we get rid of those things, then retirement investing changes dramatically for middle class people. Just saving enough to cover the insurance premiums would cost a fortune.
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I think what your saying sounds great, but throughout history we have seen societies look at other human beings as less than human, and still think there are people out there with that mindset. Attempting to have dialogue and find a common ground is one thing, but actually achieving it is quite another.
I don't agree that there has been open dialogue with those individuals, it has primarily been with the "teams" they represent. But say an opportunity does occur. 2 options. As Crazy said you can ignore or you engage. You ignore and nothing changes and can potentially grow. You engage you either do it through love and compassion or you don't. Which has the most likely potential to change hearts and minds? People don't like the answer but it's obvious.
I hear that. But then what? Are humans not capable of transcending that? I start from the position that we most certainly can. So then I ask how? If we're not capable of it then ok yea this is all just fuked and the end result should be obvious.
Sadly, that's the reality of American politics nowadays.
It explains why it was so easy for Putin to disrupt our Presidential elections in 2016 -- and get away with it. He'll try again in 2020.
I also want to be clear that Im under no illusion that there will be some perfect utopia where we all live in love and harmony. I just know there are degrees to which that can be true and there are paths to get there and NONE of the paths ignore the divine nature of each individual human.
or CNN giving Clinton debate questions...you know trying to disrupt our elections. Or the media in general in bed with the democratic party.
I think you try to reach the people you can, but I also think the reality is we are living in a time where people with these views are emboldened, which makes it tougher to reach them and have a productive conversation.
Kind of like Jussie and this lady from Georgia. Emboldened to lie to create a fake narrative.
I guess we can disband NORTHCOM then. This post shows that you have no idea what our military does or doesn’t do. But you’re perfectly comfortable doubling down saying that your opinion is reality.
Northcom has only been around since 2002, and I think our country survived pretty well before that, so I am not saying we should disband it, but we probably could. But you very well know in this day and age the primary focus of our military is from threats to our interests over seas, not protecting our physical borders.
its almost like our military protects our borders and interests through overwhelming force through out the entire world. like we arent actively trying to fight potential threats to our country in distant lands so that it doesnt actually come to our homeland in the future. i mean if there was a threat to our physical border like russia coming up over the bearing sea into alaska, i have a feeling we would immediatley answer. but mister disingenuous is pretending like they arent ready to defend our borders on a moments notice.
I know very well that you don’t have a damn clue about what you’re talking about when it comes to the military. I’ve worked on a number of military projects that are deployed directly in defense of the homeland. I’ve worked with a number of groups that are actively defending the homeland. You’re going to get semantic again (you seem to love to do this rather than admit when you don’t know what the hell you're talking about) and say that the primary focus is overseas. That may be where a good amount of our force strength is deployed, but every action overseas, whether tactical or humanitarian, has a strategic effect on our homeland defense. They’re not isolated variables. Make no mistake, though, the primary purpose of our military is to defend our national sovereignty.
If this were true, why are we spending over five times more on our Military than #2 military spender, China? Geez, given our spending, we should all feel super-safe, right? Nobody is gonna dare attack us or try disrupting our elections, right?
The reality is that we want to play World Cop. And that comes with a price tag.
Because China is a threat to our homeland and our interests abroad. Because we have to R&D things while China steals most of its IP. Because we value our soldiers’ lives a hell of a lot more than China does so we spend a ton of money giving them the best equipment we can give them.
If we spend "a ton of money" giving our military the best equipment possible, how do you explain China stealing most of our IP? How can you explain disruptive Russian hackers? How can you explain the border "crisis"?
This is not 1846. Threats to our homeland are significantly different than they were back then. Maybe, just maybe, our military spending needs to be reconsidered in light of today's threats.
Your first questions are all conflations. Spending money developing systems and software is not the same as spending money on cyber and yet we’re trying to develop the best systems in both. The border “crisis” is bad policy and not a military threat.
The military is constantly evolving to meet the emergent threats. They look way ahead of the curve. That last assertion shows that you have no idea what you’re spouting off about.
If I have no idea what I'm spouting off about, why were the Russian cyber-attacks of our Presidential election successful??!?!?!?! Whether one is a Red Hat or not, you'd have to be living under a rock to think the Russians didn't cyber-attack us. If that's not a threat, I don't know what is one then.
