New Party and Why

TomLine said:

The Democrat Party is part of the problem.

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It's Democratic Party.

Your OP is a bit undermined using things from the GOP playbook.

TomLine said:

The Democrat Party is part of the problem.

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So why not penetrate them by. . . becoming them? The Republicans have refused to run a candidate for the last two elections. . .. come on, it was really Palin Vs Obama, everybody including Republicans just hoped McCain would die out. .. . Romney? Nobody voted for Romeny. .. . people voted against Obama. . . but nobody actually wanted Romeny. Seriously, two presidential elections and Republicans have refused to run a candidate. I am MAD! I would like to punch Republican leadership straight in the nose! Man! I would like to challenge ANY republican candidate to get in the ring with me, if they tap, they got to back me. . . . Bro, I'd be the next presidential candidate. . . ain't none of them got a spine. It is CRAZY!!! There is NO reason not to vote democrat and that. . .. . is horrible considering they hate America! What is your option? Who do you have up and coming? What you need is someone like Donald Trump, but without the bad hair and taste in wives. . . coming in from corporate success, but noboby wants to step from corporate success, because it would be a pay cut. You got an oligarchy that pull people like Obama like a marionette, just like that Bush marionette they had a bit ago & nothing changes. It is time for change!

How do we do that?

Maybe flooding the democrat party and leaving them no party to oppose would do something.

What ain't cool, is doing nothing.

I think we need to adopt a different voting system, like instant runoff voting, before any third parties have a chance at winning state or federal elections.

Instant-runoff voting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Good luck but most aren't aware enough to allow this to happen.

Tom, I'm starting to think you are getting really desperate at directing traffic to your own sites.

TomLine said:

People like you make me want to go home.

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Well, I'm sorry but both those links basically go to sites that are run by you.

Facehugger:

TomLine said:

Of course. Where do you think I put the articles I write?

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Well you got me there.

TomLine said:

Of course. Where do you think I put the articles I write?

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datehookup.com?

Time For A New Party

Anovah said:

datehookup.com?

Time For A New Party

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Didymus56. Whodathunk?

jayem said:

I agree to an extent. But in any society, there will be people unable to care for themselves. Sometimes resulting from their own bad choices, but sometimes just bad luck. A civilized, humane nation will provide at least a basic social safety net. I don't want to live in Dickensian London. Voluntary charity alone cannot do the job in a populous, diverse, urbanized, industrialized, and technology-dependent society. Some systematic enterprise, funded collectively, will be necessary. You can argue that this is not Constitutionally a responsibility of the federal government. But there is no Constitutional prohibition on the states providing this.

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Striking balances is certainly a difficult thing to achieve.

If you go too far one way you get the underclass that has nothing and can look forward to either dying of starvation or freezing to death in the street.

If you go too far the other way you get people gaming the system because it's easier to take the free money than to work for a living.

It seems to me that the more detached the giver is from the recipient, the easier the system becomes to game. If I'm handing over my own personal cash to help someone I consider worthy, I'll be quick to stop the flow of money if I find them drunk and abusive, or find they've taken the money I gave them for food and bought cigarettes with it. If a bureaucrat in a panelled office in a major city is approving someone else's money being given out, they might talk tough but they lack the immediate interest in making sure it's being given to someone who deserves it.

Sickness and disability also cause problems, simply because as soon as there's any advantage in being classed as "sick" or "disabled" you can be sure that some able-bodied and healthy people are going to try and get the free money generated thanks to being "disabled". When the truly disabled tend to focus on what they can do and get on with their lives as best they can they are more likely to scrape a "pass" on a test and be considered less disabled than they really are, while the skivers and fakers know they're supposed to "fail" the test convincingly to get the extra money.

How to strike a path so those in genuine need get help and those who are merely lazy don't is easier said than done.

contango said:

It seems to me that the more detached the giver is from the recipient, the easier the system becomes to game. If I'm handing over my own personal cash to help someone I consider worthy, I'll be quick to stop the flow of money if I find them drunk and abusive, or find they've taken the money I gave them for food and bought cigarettes with it. If a bureaucrat in a panelled office in a major city is approving someone else's money being given out, they might talk tough but they lack the immediate interest in making sure it's being given to someone who deserves it.

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Which is why I think private charities are superior. The government can't decide who is a freeloader and who isn't. The individual is in the best position to make that choice. Unfortunately though, most people are....greedy. Most will only give so much as long as it doesn't impact their quality of life. Some government programs are necessary.

Rubiks said:

Which is why I think private charities are superior. The government can't decide who is a freeloader and who isn't. The individual is in the best position to make that choice. Unfortunately though, most people are....greedy. Most will only give so much as long as it doesn't impact their quality of life. Some government programs are necessary.

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I instinctively prefer private charity based on one simple reason.

If I'm giving my money, in person, to someone in need then I would hope they would repay my kindness in some form. Whether it's doing odd jobs for me or nothing more than remembering I have to go to work in the morning and keeping their noise levels down late at night, they'll make sure they don't bite the hand that feeds them.

As soon as that direct link is broken and the recipient is granted an automatic right to money taken from me, all that incentive vanishes. If they want to host a loud party in the room adjacent to my bedroom they can do whatever they want and I have no power to turn off the money supply. So not only does the recipient end up with no obligation or even necessarily any desire to give something back, but society starts to fragment because a situation of two people coming together in a private arrangement is turned into a situation of two people turned against each other because one wants more while the other wants to give less.

It's easy to see why some government programs may be necessary but the very problem with government programs is that they very rarely aim to close down because they are no longer needed. As well as the problems with breaking the links between giver and recipient, as soon as you get a bit of empire building within the government the people administering it (who cost extra money along the way, of course) don't want their precious programs shut down because they'd lose their empire, so the programs expand. As they expand they get more expensive to run, and hand out more money from those who earned it to those who did not.

Given the only way that someone can receive something without working for it is for someone else to work for it without receiving it, anything that creates such a situation by force needs to be minimised or eliminated.

TomLine said:

I too prefer private charities. Unfortunately there are not enough.

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One obvious question is whether there needs to be a specific "charity" as an established body to do charitable work.

If we are aware of someone in our own community in need, and we can help meet their need, we can always step in and do something without deferring to some external thing we call "a charity".

Not only that but if we are acting in a personal capacity we may be able to do it in a way that gives the recipient a greater sense of personal worth than just giving them free stuff. If we just give them free money it can easily come across as a message of "you're struggling, I sympathise, here's some cash" which might help them in the here and now but doesn't necessarily help them in the longer term. If we can find something they can do to earn the money, the relationship shifts from giver/receiver (which might even start to look like master/servant over time) to employer/worker.

For example, if you've got a single mother with a teenage son in the area, does it work to pay the son to wash your car, mow your lawn, pull weeds from your vegetable patch etc? That teaches the son the value of work, gives the family some extra money but in a way where they've earned it rather than just been handed it for nothing, and avoids creating the sense of being indebted to the giver. It could even encourage the son to figure which of the tasks he finds most enjoyable/lucrative/rewarding with a view to maybe going into business providing that service to others.