Stir the pot

[Mondo]

Disregard.. would just piss off people. Nothing positive to get from it

Edited August 19, 2012 by Mondo
changed mind

[Croc]

Awwww.....come on Mondo.....where is your sense of humor? I love a good cat fight on a forum! :jester:

 

Was it related to a rabidly left wing Californian political view that would really upset the mid-west 'head-in-the-sand' religiously loony right? :spam:

[Mondo]

Pretty much... but now that the Presidential race is sown up in all but about a dozen counties (not even states anymore) didn't see the need to rile up some since it wouldn't matter.

Plus I'm sure everyone here has already made up their mind. And about half are wrong; actually I think my pinko-commie leanings are in the minority on this site (mainly me and mopho)

[Bucknekked]

Not to worry Mondo there are other Pinko-Commies lurking here.

[coffee break]

Unfortunately the only think you find in the "middle of the road" these days is roadkill.

That said, I lean towards the left lane.

[JohnK]

Do "realists" count? I figured out a while back that what I "wanted" to be true had no basis in reality; i.e. since a ' belief' isn't based on fact, you could 'believe' in ANYTHING. And so constructing my approach to life based on getting the best facts I can and reasoning through them rationally finds me being entirely too logical for damn near everyone. But still, I understand that there's a sign on the wall at CNN that says "If you care who wins, you don't belong here." - so maybe I'm not completely alone.

[Jackal]

I feel there are a couple advantages to American government over Canadian, but I always felt that there was an advantage to having more than two parties to choose from.

[Mondo]

John, you may find some like minded people here:

 

http://www.churchofreality.org/wisdom/welcome_home/

 

I have one of their "walking fish" stickers on my 7

[JohnK]

John, you may find some like minded people here:

http://www.churchofreality.org/wisdom/welcome_home/

 

Thanks. Haven't run into this group before and I will check it out. I ran into the Council for Secular Humanism http://www.secularhumanism.org/ years ago. Their publication Free Inquiry is always pretty engaging reading, and a lot of Free Thinker type activities can be found in association with it. I find lots of things in the pub that challenge me to keep my head on straight, and there's lots of good data, historical and other, to answer extremist positions (like that the U.S. / Constitution was intended to and in fact created a Christian nation, and such).

[jimrankin]

I'm actually a fiscally responsible liberal so I just don't quite fit anywhere. I don't want the government in my bedroom (not that it's all that interesting) or telling women what they can do with their bodies or messing with my civil liberties but I also don't want to have them throw money at pork barrel projects or to people who don't produce but could (and then cry that it's not enough).

There are always going to be people who really need government help but somehow the social safety net of welfare became a hammoc for generations of mostly stupid and lazy people.

OK, pot stirring time!!

Since it's middle class me who paid through the nose with Ca. personal state taxes, federal personal taxes and Ca. corporate taxes on my business (highest of them all) I would like to see the following things done with where my money goes.

(a)First day on welfare you get evaluated and if physically able it's five days a week of getting up and dressed and reporting for doing community services of whatever is needed, being it picking up trash at housing units, parks and roads, scrubbing off grafiti or child care for your own and other welfare role peoples kids. Working is good for you and if your not hanging out all day in a project with nothing to do then maybe some of the "drama" and drugs that seems to be such a problem wouldn't happen.

(b) If your on welfare, your on Norplant or some other "can't forget to take it" type of birth control.

© All of your childrens DNA is determined and if your "baby daddy" is matched he gets to contribute to the cost of raising them.

(d) State and federal government agencies and their employees need to have outside oversite on staffing needs and performance, or the need for the seperate agency at all. Since most outside takeover or makeover of private companies finds that even "for profit" companies are usually failing because of poor and overstaffed management just think what they would find at many a government office.

(e) If our government wants us to be the worlds police force then reinstate the lottery draft. No one exempt, no matter how rich daddy might be. Do you think that Bush II could have left a needed role in Afganistan against the taliban to take on a war in Iraq that every advisor told him was unwinable (even his dad told him not to do it) without even a whimper out of Berkeley or a chance at re-election? Amazing how little people care when it's someone else who has to do it. (BTW, USMC E5 with 25 months in country in Vietnam who came home and joined vets against the war and protested in DC after seeing that it was also an "unwinable" conflict).

(f) Take a real look at healthcare cost! We are about the only "first world" country without a decent system. Obamacare is a start at last even if it takes a while to get beat into shape, if it isn't beat out of existence first. None are perfect but if you think your not paying for every non-covered worker or non-worker now then your head is in the sand. You can take a world cruise for the cost of one night in the hospital. Part of that's because your paying for those who don't. I ran a union shop and my payment for medical coverage through the Carpenters Union was about $9 an hour for every employee, not counting the workmans comp payments that covered them for on the job injury. Probably at least half of that was to pay for someone elses non-covered health care cost.

I could probably run out of alphabet before I ran out of bitching so I'll just quit the stir here. I'm sure there are plenty of other opinions on where our tax money should go. LOL.

Go ahead and bitch back, I'm married, I'm used to being told I have it all wrong. LOL.

[powderbrake]

I'm a small government guy, so I believe the Feds should deliver the mail, guard the shores, and get the heck out of my life.

 

That being said, I also believe that we must, as a society, care for those who are unable to care for themselves, but that can be done on a State or Local level where control by the people is more immediate.

[Kitcat]

JimR- Our current welfare system, thx to Bill Clinton, has a life time limit of 3-5 years, no matter how poor, pregnant or # of kids. And, the recipient must work in a position identified by welfare dept-even if they dont find it convenient, or feel it's beneath them, etc.

 

Exception is for disabled parents. The program is called TANF and it totally replaced ADC. It costs about $16B a year (compare, for instance, to TARP, etc's $1Trillion+).

 

There is some debate about how much flexibility states shd be given in designing work requirements. Repubs tried to make political hay out of the fact that Obama recently responded to the concerns of some governors (incl Republicans) by allowing the states some additional wiggle room in fine tuning TANF. Contrary to the attack ads, he didn't "Gut welfare reform":). He did agree that the nature of the reform shdn't be dictated totally by Washington DC, so granted the states some additional say in how their state implemented the reform.

Edited August 28, 2012 by Kitcat

[jimrankin]

Cruise through Richmond or East Oakland, or better yet, spend some time up at Alta Bates or another inner city hospital and see the women show up at the emergency room with a parcel of kids, one of whom has the flu but the emergency room is their "doctors office". Bill has been out of office over eleven years but there are kids spaced out over that whole time who's mother has been on welfare or some other program for that long and who is not reporting for any kind of work. I was aware of the Clinton reforms and thought it was going to do more but at least here in the SF bay area there are still "lifetime" welfare families. "Workfare" has done some good but it isn't doing much but scratching the surface of the problem.

A woman who was working at one of my suppliers had graduated from Santa Clara and went into the welfare department to "help" people in need. She lasted about three years and said she had to quit because most of the people she was trying to "help" had no desire to do anything on their own to get out of the cycle and her supervisors didn't care in the least how much welfare cheating went on or who was even bothering with the supposed "checking up" on their assigned cases. Her comment was "never enough money or stamps for food but alway enough for cigarettes and a "doo". Until the child factory and "you owe me" attitude gets corrected the people who really need it are going to have to share with the ones who just want it.

I'm not sure if there has been much improvement since then, hopefully so.

[ayseven]

I don't live in the US, so I don't count, but don't you feel it's kind of odd to spend TRILLIONS on a war machine to go places where it doesn't do any good, instead of a few million on fighting poverty in Oakland and the like? I used to live in the Bay area, and I know it isn't all "surf's up in Santa Cruz" for a lot of people around there, especially if you aren't white. Your great country can be even better!

[slomove]

Jim, nothing to bitch about your opinion. Pretty much fully shared.

 

My son started working Sheriff Security in a SS office in the San Fernando Valley, specifically for singles and he has to deal with with the homeless, drug addicts, gang bangers, welfare queens and the like. Some are O.K. but many are just lowlife.

 

He also said that there is no push to clean up the welfare lists because more "clients" means more resources for the office and job security. Welfare abuse may not be the biggest financial burden for society but it is surely breeding a leeching attitude and criminal subculture.

 

That said, many of these folks are mental or physical wrecks and totally unable to work.

[Mondo]

Jim,

Nobody's all liberal or conservative... I pretty much agree with all that. Plus, when deciding to go to war, lets include a national tax to pay for it so we don't go in too deep of debt over it (percent of gross income so we all feel the pain). Though I do think (e) would just create another layer of bureaucracy.

 

Here's a controversial one; increase IRS staff. Let them increase staffing by half the money they collect from cheats. Guarantee they won't be going over middle class wage earners much.

[ayseven]

I think you hit it on the head, as it were: mental problems cause big social problems. The same thing happens everywhere in the world: boot everyone out of institutions, and let them roam free to not cope, and generally cause mayhem. I don't have a simple answer, myself, but downloading to the simplest common denominator in society doesn't seem to work either.

[rzempel]

when deciding to go to war, lets include a national tax to pay for it so we don't go in too deep of debt over it

 

We haven't had any declared wars since 1941.

 

Perhaps it's simply too much to ask our elected "representatives" to do their job.

[BusaNostra]

stir the pot?

the only witch I know that stir the pot is pelosi

[Bucknekked]

Gawd i wish my blinders were as effective as Busa's. He seems to have missed Jan Brewer, Michele Bachman, and Sarah Palin