‘A hungry man is not a free man’
America is the biggest exporter of food.
Meanwhile, the US Department of Agriculture reveals that at home, 4% of American households are going hungry for lack of money (that’s 4.4 million households), and another 12% are food-insecure: they eat if they don’t pay rent or other bills.
American poverty is a multifaceted disaster. Why do we export liberty and abundance to other lands when America is not taking care of its own?
We have had a conservative leadership. Many conservatives simply don’t want to take care of our poor. More welfare, according to Social Darwinists, just encourages the poor and then they won’t work. These conservatives are proud of their ruthlessness.
Those conservatives who do believe in helping also believe that the only help should be in the form of charity.
Many conservatives believe that charity is the answer to poverty.
(This is obviously wrong, because if charity really worked, there would be no more homeless and hungry.)
What’s the catch?
The catch is the conservative mindset that charity should only be given to people who are ‘deserving.’ (And conservatives insist on making that judgment themselves.)
So we have 18% of American children living in poverty, and their numbers are growing. We’d rather give charity to foreigners. Conservatives are giving charity selectively because of their prejudice against the poor. — These kids’ parents are welfare cases, so are not ‘deserving.’
But a nation with many hungry millions cannot be a strong nation. A hungry person is not a free person (originally Adlai Stevenson’s dictum) because hunger is coercive. A well-fed person can explore his options, read, and act as an informed member of a democracy. But a hungry person is a problem: he’s distracted, fearful, resentful, and he must look for food.
Unequally distributed hunger creates a division in a society.
Next: in a dangerous dog-eat-dog world, which conservatives insist, there’s Darwinian competition between nations. Conservatives keep saying: to survive, we have to be top dog. But how can we be top dog, with these internal divisions? Outsiders, looking at us, certainly see us weakened by them.
I’m not saying conservatives are rational.
Taking care of our own would heal us, naturally. But fathoms deep in the conservative mind is some dark, lurching logic that weakens us. Something even stronger than the fear of outside threats prevents them helping their fellow Americans.
An absurd calculus. It means that while America is the biggest exporter of food, we have hunger. We have poverty and blight. From the outside it cannot look like America is the land of the free.
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Keeping the pilot light on
Since the late 1970s and Ronald Reagan’s inauguration we’ve seen supply side economics, deregulation, an explosive growth of free markets, the sapping of union power.
The Left’s objective is still vague. Liberalism gets its spirit from equity, justice, and collective action. That spirit is all but broken, witness the precipitous inequalities in America, witness the virtual disappearance from our language of terms like “the common good,” witness unions at their all-time low memberships, witness the Supreme Court retreating from enforcement of anti-trust laws.
During the Bush administration, the Left’s tolerance melted into passivity. Energetic leftists of the 1960s, once in the media spotlight, grew wealthy and cautious.
Not just that. Any spirit on the left was also broken down into fractions. Watch a peace march, a good place to find leftists, and you saw a sea of different banners, for as many different causes. All of them good. But there is no center.
The left reached another crisis point. Since then, an agitated search for what’s to blame.
It’s partly the money. The left needs to find something else besides wealth. Today, everybody in America sleeps safe under a star, the idea that one day, they will be rich. Americans navigate their whole lives by that star. So commercialism dominates everything – and it has saturated even the left. Commercialism everywhere. Lefties worry about their credit score and worry about security.
Sold out.
This President has abandoned any serious atteempts at facing up to the banks. It looks like loss of nerve.
Which way to turn?
After Obama took the presidency, the first order of business was the economic collapse – undoing the money mess created by the Bush administration. Rebuilding our infrastructure. Rebuilding our schools. – But all of those had the tone of cleaning up somebody’s old wreckage. Fixing health care. Job by necessary job. But all that is not ‘forward.’
It’s partly that Liberals have lost their ‘forward.’ This is as deep a crisis as our submission to Wall Street. It is a collective loss of nerve.
There’s no fallen flag to grab up in the Liberal movement because there is no longer any flag.
Congress has no unified ‘forward.’ The American people have no unified forward. Once, we had the Occupy Movement. It suffered from lack of any forward agenda, and caved to police action. So now liberals talk about their frightening college debts or get fearful about retirement. Since we have no more effective restriction on exorbitant interest rates, they sap anybody’s courage.
The heart of the matter is that there is no new ideology.
There’s few leftist commentators, talk show liberals who churn the air like windmills.
But no coherent new theory, to unify.
Except here.
Only on this blog can you read whetherexploitation is ethical. Only here can you read about the contradiction between the American workplace – undemocratic and authoritarian – and the surrounding democracy. Read why social inequality is a killer (there’s new scientific evidence). About the long shadow of materialism. On widening corruption. Here the zero-sum concept is explained. Read how, in the long run, exorbitant greed may threaten democracyitself. A brief summary of opposing Right and Left philosophies here andhere.
Opinion is power.
But every year for the last 30 years, debate has faded; the left almost became mute. Liberals have avoided theory confrontations. Not in Congress, not at beer parties.
Every time that happened, the left’s light dimmed.
Left ideology. This blog is where we keep the pilot light on.
[Comments: click on ‘Keeping the pilot light on’ in the Header, or in Pages, below]
How the Right dominates
People are fascinated by conflict.
The Right wing is energetically shoving blame for the national economy onto the Left. One of the right’s bullies, Bill O’Reilly, dealt out his thrashings on t.v.
Right wing commentators run an ostentatious tyranny. It is the source of the public’s fascination with the Right.
The Left considers itself too nice for this bruiser style. The Left simply doesn’t have head-crushers like Limbaugh and O’Reilly. There is no Fox News on the left, and right-wing radio shows vastly outnumber left-wing. The Left thinks that being morally good, maybe showing a tolerant sense of humor, should be enough to prevail.
It is not, and the Left has no real idea how to push back. So the Left, with its natural compassion, its collective action, its trust, its usury laws, are all being put through the meat grinder.
Surviving a reactionary
One look at this man and you know you’re dead: here.
Civil war looming within the Democratic party?
The Democratic party has lost its soul. Here’s why.
If our children are being raised on Ayn Rand, we’re in trouble
– here’swhy.
Left Blog
Left Blog 
To paraphrase Jean jacques Rosseau:
“A hungry man is born free but is forever in irons”
I think this applies here.
Excellent blog. As we take note of what is happening in our world is it not time to look for another way. Corporate greed feeds only those at the top. Those who build the corporations are poorly paid, with few benefits. Capitalism has outrun its usefulness, it no longer provides jobs to Americans and profits are not helping to re-build this country. Americans are hungry and this country is hungry, for a new answer to today’s and tomorrow’s problems.
Levees collapse because like most of infrastruct, disrepair and negligence have been allowed to run rampant.
While people are fearful and concerned about their own family suvivial, they will not turn to see what is destroying them, it will just happen.
If capitalism has outrun its usefulness then why is china starting to adopt it and move more people out of poverty?
Capitalism does work but only if everyone plays by the rules, which is not happening. Oil prices are ruining the economy and because of lobbying and such by the oil companies, progress is greatly slowed.
Change will come though and it will not come about through socialist ideas because as history has shown socialism is for idealists, who want to be paid to have no skills or work ethic at all, and it doesn’t/never has/never will/never come close to working.
Illegal immigration is another can of worms that needs to be stopped so that they can no longer be included in the percentage of the starving populace which they shouldn’t belong to anyways. They don’t pay taxes, they steal identities, they increase crime rates, they cause Emergency Rooms to shut down because they cannot pay yet they must be treated, they use our free public education system but once again they don’t pay for that, and then people complain that they don’t get paid as much as a U.S. citizen. I’m not sure of how many people are aware of this but a majority of our ancestors came here THE LEGAL WAY and they actually bothered to learn the language, pay taxes, contribute to society…be good people, catch my drift? And they didn’t complain. Can’t say the same for illegals they want everything we have without having to earn it, sounds pretty liberal to me. Overall they hurt our economy. Little known fact right here. They cause 180 billion dollars in crime per year. That does not even include legal fees. Are they worth it? I think not. I could go on but I shall refrain.
All we need is a solid Republican president like Teddy Roosevelt to reestablish the economy by putting the corporations back in their place. Capitalism works, socialism doesn’t, thats why we are still number one and Russia isn’t.
China will get the same results we have, but it will take some time. Before we deregulated the working people could make a decent wage, which stimulated the economy because they could buy something. Industrial workers bought houses, cars, television sets, and could keep up the payments.
Illegal immigrants are irrelevant to the discussion. They pay rent, they pay income taxes on their wages, and they end up paying more than you because they are afraid to file for the refuld they could have.
While nominal “christians” run the coultry, they forget the teachings of the carpenter from occupied palestine known as Jesus, who healed the sick and fed the hungry.
Your logic is faulty. You say that charity doesn’t work because then there would be no homeless or hungry people. By that same logic, your own solution doesn’t work, because we’ve been trying welfare for 40 years.
It isn’t that we don’t care about the poor and hungry. For the most part conservatives are very generous. We just prefer to give throuh charitable organizations and our churches. That is their job and you can trust more that through churches and these other charities that the work in helping these people will actually get done. Big socialistic government has never helped, only worsen and prolonged our problems. If we look to government to be our answer, we will ALL be poor, homeless, and hungry.
“We have a conservative leadership. Many conservatives simply don’t want to take care of our poor. More welfare, according to Social Darwinists, just encourages the poor and then they won’t work. These conservatives are proud of their ruthlessness.”
So many inaccuracy’s in this statement its not even funny.
1) Just because someone is republican does not make them conservitive.(neo cons are not conservatives there is a big difference)
2) welfare has never proven to be successful (ever!) To many people (not all) choose to live on little for doing nothing when given the option(instead of living on a bit more for doing allot i must admit the idea would b hard not to take the easy road). Am i proud of this no i wish this world was perfect and people would only use welfare if they needed it but some choose to live off it and yes i mean choose it bankrupts a nation to pay for its unemployed(especially those who are employable but wont look)
“Those conservatives who do believe in helping also believe that the only help should be in the form of charity. “
Not necessarily true i believe in limited welfare (3-6 months every 6 or so years) but i also believe our government is horrible at running anything having to do with money and would end up paying 25$ per can of peanut butter instead of 4$ that charity’s would pay.
“Many conservatives believe that charity is the answer to poverty.”
No we believe hard work , family values and charity are. So if you cant work and have no family then our solution is charity. But honestly Hard work(sometimes degrading work like Mc donalds) is the way out of poverty.
“The catch is the conservative mindset that charity should only be given to people who are ‘deserving.’ (And conservatives insist on making that judgment themselves.)”
yes we believe that someone who is capable of working but chooses not to should not be living off the fat of the land. thats is so hard to understand…
“Taking care of our own would heal us, naturally. But fathoms deep in the conservative mind is some dark, lurching logic that weakens us. Something even stronger than the fear of outside threats prevents them helping their fellow Americans.”
I would like you to back this statements up conservatives are the most giving members of our society
heres a link read this book sorry to say it man liberal Americans give less help less and tend to scream more for income redistribution. Yet its conservatives who are giving it to those in need(yes in our opinion but its our money not yours.).
http://www.amazon.com/Who-Really-Cares-Compasionate-Conservatism/dp/0465008216
“An absurd calculus. It means that while America is the biggest exporter of food, we have hunger. We have poverty and blight. From the outside it cannot look like America is the land of the free.”
Why do you care what we look like to someone else? Seriously Are we that nation that we don’t do what is right but what is popular. (whats right and what’s popular is almost never the same thing) I do agree with one thing yous aid though we need to start taking care of our own(the kids first) first but not because it looks good but because its the right thing to do I couldnt care less what some guy in china, France or Australia thinks about it but i do agree all needy kids should be taken care of. (oh and seriously try and find a conservative who says not to feed kids cus there parents wont work i dare you. Your not going to find one though you may find a few republicans.)
We give to other nations not to help the poor and hungry but to buy their allegiance. We spend half our money on war, argue about feeding the hungry, while pretending to be followers of the carpenter from occupied palestine known as Jesus.
Fact: Capitalism, with all it’s worts, has been the single most effective tool in fighting poverty this world has ever seen.
That being said, it can definitely be approved upon here in America.
Globalization is here to stay. Accept it. Jump on board. Work hard (play harder of course). Innovate, invest in emerging markets. Enjoy life and appreciate the fact you are living the the early 21st century.
Yes there are poor people who need a hand. I don’t have a problem with that. But not everyone wants to work hard and prosper.
Stop labeling conservatives a bunch of heartless jerks. We actually do the charitable giving while liberals simply talk. Socialism and communism never HAVE and never WILL work, no matter who is in charge.
Tell the poor to stop breeding like flies. And yes, Liberals, it IS my business because I have to pay for all these illegitimate kids that these poor, deprived people pop out with no thought whatsoever to the consequences of their actions.
Yes we need to take care of Americans first. The poor need to do their part also. One can do a lot to prevent one’s own poverty. Even Bill Cosby said as much. Go look up what he said.
And who gives a you-know-what about what the world thinks of us. They should be worried about what we think of them.
Capitalism, warts and all, is what made and makes our country great.
If any of you libs don’t like America may I suggest you move? Try Russia or Angola or your socialist utopia of France.
The vast majority of “the homeless and hungry” are substance addicted, and / or mentally ill. As a typical conservative – who naturally approaches life from a logical (rather than a emotional) point of view, I have little sympathy for this portion of our society. Getting addicted to drugs is a CHOICE. Refusing to attend free state paid basic education is a CHOICE. Having multiple children out of wedlock is a CHOICE. If you are mentally ill, I would return you to the state run institutions that once cared for you, but were shut down by to do-good liberals, who essentially turned you out, and abandoned you to the wolves.If you are otherwise sane, but a victim of a lifetime of bad decision making, I’ll be happy to HELP you – assuming you are truly serious and determined to get your act together. If you just want to slack off, and get a free ride, then I am your enemy. Worse than me is the bleeding heart liberal, that will gladly take money from my pocket, and give it to you – no string attached – so that you may continue your self destructive behavior.
Liberals want to weep and moan. Conservatives actually want to solve the problem.
Conservatives have logic? Laughable.
Liberals understand that individual actions have an impact on others, conservatives choose to turn a blind eye to that fact. Late capitalism has lead us down an unsustainable path that will leave a degenerated world for your children, but that’s not your problem, right?
And if you are so naive and uninformed to believe that socialism has died and the fall of the Soviet Union proved anything about the “grandness” of capitalism you need to bolster your understanding of history rather than accept abstract platitudes.
Liberals are the one’s in possession of both logic and compassion, two things that don’t function well with greed (capitalism). Keep pretending that conservatism isn’t a scourge, hasn’t ran the average family into the ground and really violates all manner of logic– I’m sure that will help you pay for your 5$ a gallon gasoline and recover your foreclosed home. Suckers.
“A hungry man is not a free man”
This is argument by assertion and an appeal to pity. If you expect me to believe you’re rational try making logical arguments.
Of course, your only solution is to tax conservatives (oops, I mean the wealthy who got that way from their own accord, many of them first-generationers) at an ever increasing rate. If liberals truely cared for the poor, they would at least match what conservatives give to charity, despite what you say our motives are (or unfounded accusations of hand-selecting recipients). But liberals don’t give as much, because they normally don’t have as much, and liberalism is largely founded in an entitlement viewpoint of the world. Your post fails to mention that “poverty” as defined by the government has changed dramatically in the last few years. Even America’s poorest enjoy many basic and even no so basic amenities most of the world doesn’t (the average house in poverty has several cell phones, 2 cars, cable TV, a fridge, microwave, utilities, access to medical services, etc.) Conservatices sometimes can be selective in who they give their money to (but what is the option? Letting government officals make the selection for us?) because they see where the need is greatest and truest, not more “deserving”.
To Mr. Teddy-Roosevelt-can-save-us: You cross a line when you attempt to emphasize that most immigrants entered the country through legal channels. You seem to ignore the fact that former US policy was to just show up and sign in. Comparing today’s illegal immigrants to that precedent, they’re in parity. So while you’re technically right in that the former influxes were “legal,” you’re ignoring the fact that it was the law that changed, not the actions of the people.
“Getting addicted to drugs is a CHOICE. If you are mentally ill, I would return you to the state run institutions that once cared for you”
Substance abuse and mental illness often go hand-in-hand. NO ONE would voluntarily admit themselves, or anyone they love, into a state-run institution if there were any other options. For many, living on the street is preferable to the kind of “care” they receive from the government. These people are not all ignorant slackers!
“Little known fact right here. They cause 180 billion dollars in crime per year. That does not even include legal fees.”
Fact? Proof?
“Liberals are the one’s in possession of both logic and compassion,”
Would you happen to be one of the people who complain about the polarization of America, and how conservatives refuse to cooperate with liberals? Because I know people on both extremes of the spectrum, and logic doesn’t seem to be a quality one side can claim as their own.
“Of course, your only solution is to tax conservatives (oops, I mean the wealthy who got that way from their own accord, many of them first-generationers) at an ever increasing rate. If liberals truely cared for the poor, they would at least match what conservatives give to charity, despite what you say our motives are (or unfounded accusations of hand-selecting recipients). But liberals don’t give as much, because they normally don’t have as much, and liberalism is largely founded in an entitlement viewpoint of the world.”
Where to begin? Again, where is the proof? For information on philanthropic giving demographics (a google search the poster could have done before asserting that conservatives are more generous than liberals) yielded this site:
http://www.generousgiving.org/page.asp?sec=4&page=451
There are other sites with similar information.
Speaking of Google. A search on conservatives more generous yields the following.
http://www.google.com/search?q=conservatives+more+generous&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Well your link to disprove that liberals are generous – didn’t pan out, but here’s one that does and is by a long time lib.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/204/story_20419_1.html
“Little known fact right here. They cause 180 billion dollars in crime per year. That does not even include legal fees.”
Fact? Proof?
I’ve read that particularly in the california state budget – the cost just for already incarcerated illegals is an unbelievable figure. But like most things that would disprove or be an anathema to the lib MSM – you (the public) wont hear about it.
Ok – I found it —
Cost of Illegal Immigration Equals Cost of California Budget Deficit
http://www.capsweb.org/content.php?id=308&menu_id=8
Liberals are the one’s in possession of both logic and compassion, two things that don’t function well with greed (capitalism).
I first responded pleasantly to point out the fallacies in that statement, but now just have to say – that is just the same ole tired liberal stupid BS you folks who really have no idea how to be an adult (ie take ANY responsibility) spout !! whew — sorry..
Well your link to disprove that liberals are generous – didn’t pan out
I’ve read that …..
Ok – I found it —
Cost of Illegal Immigration Equals Cost of California Budget Deficit
http://www.capsweb.org
I appreciate your looking things up – information is so much more persuasive than rhetoric! I have NO personal stake in seeing my opinions upheld by inaccurate statistics, in spite of what you imply. I didn’t have the time to go through all of the hits I got, and I’m glad that others did the legwork for me and shared their results. And speaking of rhetoric…..
…that is just the same ole tired liberal stupid BS you folks who really have no idea how to be an adult (ie take ANY responsibility) spout
like most things that would disprove or be an anathema to the lib MSM – you (the public) wont hear about it.
You are making a lot of assumptions . Personal responsibility is not yet another value that the conservatives have cornered the market on. If we are going to make uninformed sweeping generalizations, we might as well talk only with people we know agree with us!
whats that old saying, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat a lifetime…. or is it throw other peoples money at it and let the government take care of it. because hunger and poverty are obviously solveable problems….
Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven’t had it. Capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. It’s not capitalism when the system is plagued with incomprehensible rules regarding mergers, acquisitions, and stock sales, along with wage controls, price controls, protectionism, corporate subsidies, international management of trade, complex and punishing corporate taxes, privileged government contracts to the military-industrial complex, and a foreign policy controlled by corporate interests and overseas investments.
In the Great Game, wealth wins. You don’t win if everybody gets wealthy.
The thing about charity is that is bumps up your standing in the Game without improving anyone else’s standing. A meaningless donation can make you look compassionate in the eyes of your peers without changing the rankings.
And a donation overseas gives you leverage with their government, especially if it comes in the form of use-only-once food. When the populace becomes dependent on your charity, you can get concessions from their government by threatening to cut off the charity.
Properly used, charity is an investment. The wealthy know it.
If it weren’t the only place you would find charity is in the dictionary.
If anybody is going hungry in this country, something is wrong with them. GET A JOB. I have a wife and two kids. I work in a grocery store and go to school full time (with student loans). We started out with me working at McDonalds and I made a decision to make our lives better. It has been difficult but worth it and we are almost there. Whatever life you are living in this country is because of your own decisions.
winkops.blogspot.com
Anonymous said:
“In the Great Game, wealth wins. You don’t win if everybody gets wealthy.
The thing about charity is that is bumps up your standing in the Game without improving anyone else’s standing. A meaningless donation can make you look compassionate in the eyes of your peers without changing the rankings.
And a donation overseas gives you leverage with their government, especially if it comes in the form of use-only-once food. When the populace becomes dependent on your charity, you can get concessions from their government by threatening to cut off the charity.
Properly used, charity is an investment. The wealthy know it.
If it weren’t the only place you would find charity is in the dictionary.”
The above poster is historically illiterate. In advanced capitalistic economies virtually everyone becomes wealthier. Socialism is a proven destroyer of wealth. And the ultimate dependency is to become dependent upon government handouts.
What is the origin of the idea to give only to the “deserving poor?” Such selectivity is not a gospel concept. It sounds like something that may have been derived from the Puritans or the capitalist/utilitarian strains of Protestant thought.
You are an idiot.
Never mind that the definition of “poverty” has changed so much in the last 100 years.
In 1960 my Mom and her parents lived in a 3 room shack in a coal mining town. Grandpa worked 80-90 hours a week, Grandma worked 40 and all the kids got jobs as soon as they were able to. They had an icebox and an outhouse, and one old car that they drove once a week into town to get groceries. They weren’t considered to be in “poverty.” They just knew they had to work hard to get along and better themselves.
When I was born, my Dad made $40 a week as a union meat cutter for Albertson’s. This was after he spent the last couple of years working at a gas station full time and working on a oil field casing crew full time at the same time. He budgeted himself $1 a month to buy beer. He drove a beat up old International Scout, and lived with my Mom and us two kids in a tiny two bedroom house. He was gone in the morning before sunrise and came home usually after we were in bed. He was never considered to be “poverty” level.
From those meager beginnings, with only his own hard work and that of his family, he built his own business, one that, while it isn’t an empire full of silver spoons, promises to provide good employment to any of his descendants who want to work hard and carry on the family business.
Today, my sister-in-law is married to an illegal alien from Canada. They have two TV’s, two cars, air conditioning, ipods, and nice clothes. They never miss a meal, and drive 400 miles round trip every weekend so he can practice with his band. He spends most of his days playing golf with his daughter. According the government, they are living in poverty.
Me? I bought a beautiful home at the same time as all these people who are facing foreclosure. The difference is, my wife and I READ the loan documents, made informed choices, and bought a house we could afford. I don’t give a crap what the price of gas is any more than I care what the price of milk is, because if I need it, I find a way to earn enough money to get it. I spent the first ten years of parenthood qualifying for free or reduced lunches at school for my kids. I never even dreamed of accepting them. I was considered “poverty” level, and I never wanted for anything that I couldn’t earn myself.
THAT is the real difference between a liberal and a conservative. A liberal checks his pocket (and his neighbors) to figure out how much money he has, then spends it. A conservative checks his needs (and his neighbors) and figures out how to provide for them.
You can make your life better, or you can complain that the government isn’t making your life better. Those are the only to real economic choices in life.
Why am I an idiot? (reference to comment #23 which was right after mine.)
Stephen Bauer –
I think comment #23 was a response to the post ‘A Hungry Man Is Not A Free Man,’ and not to your comment.
I love people and believe we need better policies for affordable housing and encourage economic growth.
I disagree with your prescriptions. Work is good. People who refuse to work don’t have a right to drain those who do.
We need policies which empower people through opportunity not destroy their spirit.
Liberal don’t seem to understand economics. They believe wealth is finite and therefore if one person is rich then others must be poor to balance out the greedy rich person. This explains their guilt for being successful. Fortunately for everyone wealth is not finite and in fact is growing all the time, due to capitalism.
I could be wrong about the source but I believe it was Winston Churchill who said, “capitalism is the unequal distribution of wealth and socialism is the equal distribution of poverty.” No truer words have been spoken!
Liberals are keen on handing over health care to the government citing “fairness.” Just which government program would they cite as proof the government can actually provide this service? Government programs in general are a disaster because they are run by idiots who couldn’t manage a lamonade stand. Look at what they have done to our once envied education system! What a mess!
Hey, why haven’t I heard the liberals crying foul about the “secret, illegal wire-tapping” the Bush administration has been doing in a long time? Isn’t this a huge issue that they have attacked our freedoms? I guess not since the democrat controlled house and senate passed the surveillance act. That had to hurt!
And how’s the 9% approval rating for congress feel?
I guess we’ll see in November!
To simply say that this is stupid will suffice. Above my comment are several comments left by people who believe in being labeled “conservative” or “liberal”, and battle each other as if two arch-rivals. That’s a bunch of bull.
There will always be disagreements, but the only reason we have so many of them is that we’ve been divided into these two “teams” purposely. Facts are facts, and the truth is that some approaches fit sometimes, and others fit at others.
Certain things should remain constant in the system of American Government, though, and one of them is the idea that government exists only to preserve liberty. Period. All legislation should be examined carefully and scrutinized by that standard, and if it doesn’t fit, then it should be thrown out.
Liberals are naive and Republicans are fear-mongers. There must be other people reading this blog that agree with me. In specific regards to this article, here are my thoughts:
“These days we’re all about exporting democracy and freedom to foreign counties. And using war to do it. The global America-for-export dream is us, walking into mud-flat third world nations, nailing victory into place and unfurling the banners of abundance.”
That’s what they want you to believe, man. Our government doesn’t give a sh*t about exporting “democracy”, whether it’s exported through war or trade or whatever.
American poverty is a multifaceted disaster. Why do we export liberty and abundance to other lands when America is not taking care of its own?
Because we’re NOT EXPORTING LIBERTY AND ABUNDANCE, and our government doesn’t give a sh*t about that because it’s a tool being manipulated by a small class of extremely wealthy people to make them more money!
We have a conservative leadership. Many conservatives simply don’t want to take care of our poor. More welfare, according to Social Darwinists, just encourages the poor and then they won’t work.
Conservative leadership!? Last I checked there was a small majority in the House and a large minority in the Senate of Democrats! Surely this is not insignificant! You say conservatives don’t want to take care of our poor. Do you think LIBERALS care!? Most liberals don’t even know, and I don’t hear about American Poverty being the big issue in politics lately. What do you propose we do for the poorest of Americans? Create more inflation for the sake of funding gigantic social programs like government health care, so that pharmaceutical and health industries make mad money ripping-off the government, and the poor end up paying the higher prices on what they can already barely afford to survive?
As for this idea of “social darwinism”… well, no matter what we do, we aren’t above nature. If “darwinism” is the supreme way of the universe, why would we think we can break that process? The best we can do is make “social darwinism” less painful, but neither party seems interested in what happens to average Americans.
Those conservatives who do believe in helping also believe that the only help should be in the form of charity.
Many conservatives believe that charity is the answer to poverty.
(This is obviously wrong, because if charity really worked, there would be no more homeless and hungry.)
The first sentence is a crackpot assumption. That’s one of those things that you can’t just STATE as a FACT without NUMBERS. If you want that statement to work, it’s gotta be “Many conservatives who do believe…”
As for CHARITY being the answer to poverty… well. I’m sorry to break it to you, but there IS no answer to poverty. There is no solution. There are certainly several ways to minimize it, and believe it or not, free-trade is an excellent element to that.
As for the THIRD sentence… Am I the only one who covered the concept of “utopia” in my high school English and philosophy classes? Again I’ll stress that there’s no perfect world, and there’s no amount of charity, welfare, or anything that you can apply as a solution to poverty. Even if you had a perpetual motion machine to create energy out of nothing that would be used to help clone food for the poor and gold to pay the people that do the cloning, you would end up with a larger number of adequately-fed, unhappy poor people. If you try to clone gold for them to use, the value of gold would drop and they wouldn’t be left with much of value anyway, after all that trouble.
…We’d rather give charity to foreigners. Conservatives are giving charity selectively because of their prejudice against the poor. — These kids’ parents are welfare cases, so are not ‘deserving.’
You have no proof of the political bias of any charity. Liberals are usually the ones attributed with the desire to save Africa and South America. What’s the deal? You don’t exactly have a point here. If charity isn’t working, and people on welfare need charity, then welfare isn’t working either, so what do you propose?
But a nation with many hungry millions cannot be a strong nation.
Really? But we exert our force and pressure on other nations all over the globe. The Soviet Union held substantial influence in its day, and it was full of hungry millions. To the people that make the decisions, hungry millions don’t matter. It’s not a reality to them, it’s not a concern.
A hungry person is not a free person (originally Adlai Stevenson’s conclusion) because hunger is coercive. A well-fed person can explore his options, read, and act as an informed member of a democracy. But a hungry person is a problem: he’s distracted, fearful, resentful, and he must look for food.
This is the most truthful thing you’ve said yet.
OH!!! You’ve cited OpEd News for the related article!!! HAHAHA… I used to read stuff on there, but there’s too much crap floating around on that website. Makes sense. It’s about the only thing that does so far.
Thanks,
Armando
Poverty will be reduced when honest wages are paid for work. Wages have been moving steadily downward since Reagan came to power, along with the crushing of the unions and flooding the market with illegal labor. Today a carpenter makes less than he did in 1978 in terms of purchasing power, and his social status has been revised to become an underclass. The prosperity our nation once knew was based on the working stiff being able to buy consumer goods, which created jobs making cars and televisions. Now those good wages are gone, taken from us by Republicans who talk of cutting labor costs as if they were not talking about people, but as people fall by the wayside economically, the entire economy suffers, because there goes one more who will not be buying a car. Henry Ford had it right, better wages raised all boats.
I don’t know Armando,don’t you think another “stimulus check” would benifit us all?
That should end poverty,for a few minutes,at least!
But I must disagree on one point alone.There is a cure for poverty-get a job,do what you are expected to do,show up for work on time and stop being the slacker the socialist we have become have trained you to be-
I kinda like Capt.John Smith’s opinion,many years ago,”No work,No eat”
That should reduce poverty,and install motivation,which some of us are lacking.
Many conservatives believe that charity is the answer to poverty.
This is simply not true. The answer to poverty is to produce. Liberal policies get in the way of people producing by pricing jobs above the ability of some to produce (minimum wage) and giving people money without having them produce thus reducing their incentive to produce leaving them stuck in poverty (welfare).
Where charity comes in is when a person is actually not capable of producing. Orphans, single moms (or dads), people with specific physical handicaps, etc. fall into this category. Private charity is more capable than a bureaucracy at determining when a person is in need and when they are trying to game the system and take charity from those who really need it.
A note about single moms. Usually you’d refer to widows but the point is to help someone trying to raise a child on their own while not encouraging irresponsible behavior. And this is one of the major points that government programs have really reversed the incentives and damaged the family in the progress. Welfare reform was a step in the right direction.
Like Michael Savage says, “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder”. All you have to do is continue reading the comments of each and every true Leftist Liberal and his point will truly prove itself. Just keep letting them speak from their hearts and their true intellect and illogic willmanifest itself. You will see so many twisted ideas come forth that you will think that you are speaking with Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reed.
I work at a retail store and see how the poor are “starving”. Many use their food stamp cards to buy steaks and garbage they don’t need then roll out the cash on other food. Time to terminate food stamps and also Indian reservation hand-outs.
We have the fattest poor people on the planet. Being thin in the US is a marker of education and wealth.
Can any liberal point out the article in the Constitution that says government should support the poor or downtrodden? How about the Bible? Be your brother’s keeper, but where does it say the government should force you to support him?
Liberals should go live in the great socialist countries and take the poor with them. But, please stop creating problems that only give you a reason to increase your control.
(This is obviously wrong, because if charity really worked, there would be no more homeless and hungry.)
I just got out of bed but I think this is the most foolish thing I’m likely to read today. It’s like saying that if patching the roof were effective in keeping the rain out then there wouldn’t be floods.
A major cause of homelessness is rent control, which discourages the provision of rental housing and relieves tenants from the need to take in roommates.
The price of food is kept artificially high by regulations and subsidies.
It would be better to remove these evils than insist that the rest of us pay to make up for them — except that this wouldn’t empower some unionized bureaucrat.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/101/1/e12
If the poor are hungry how come according to the CDC (see link) the obesity rates among the low-income population is increasing?
Charity is the realm of religion. The reason our government is so big and expensive is because FDR decided that the problem of the unemployed during the depression was too big for people of faith to handle. He proceeded to purchase the hearts of the needy (ie., Left Wing Bloggers) with government money. The Second Amendment Establishment Clause makes Federal handouts and Social Security unconstitutional unless the people become blinded by the wonderful checks and goodies. Socialism undermines our great institutions.
This is the second blog of yours I’ve read, and again I’m struck by the foolishness of condemning the current system and everything about it without proposing a feasible alternative. What do you suggest the country should do leftblog? Turn to socialism? Communism?
I don’t think a single person who’s commented here is glad people are starving. But as far as I know most governmental attempts to distribute wealth more evenly have failed. It’s a shitty world we live in, and you act righteous because you preach that something should be done about it. Like what then? I’d like a detailed plan that could actually work, and if you can’t come up with that, maybe you should be more careful with accusations you make.
First of all who do you think is feeding the poor? It is definitely not the liberals. Let’s look some of the bigger organizations that deal with hunger, Feed the Children (Christian), Fred Jordan Mission (Christian), Children’s Christian Fund (hmmmm, I am going with Christian) and by definition most Christians (at least those who do follow Christ and not the politically correct pundits)are conservative. In fact, when natural disasters hit it is the Christians that are first on the scene. It is the liberals that hate the poor. They think the poor are a bunch of morons that can’t do anything without the “help” of their paternalistic intrusions. Conservatives think the poor are capable of rising above their circumstances. They believe in human dignity, self-respect and responsibility for one’s own life. Conservatives think if you give someone a chance to be in charge of their own destiny they can go to heights never thought possible. Liberals think everyone has their own place and must be kept there and they work hard to keep the poor man down! Well guess what liberals you are not keeping me down! I am a conservative and proud of it!
there is a dangerous trend i suspect most of us fear -the slow slide towards state socialism or communism for the majority(with centralized control to the few).BECAUSE IT ISN’T ABOUT MONEY , IT’S ABOUT POWER .
every swing of the political pedulum from each election brings
another flawed front pawn who him/herself doesn’t realize how played we all are.i suggest that gwb hasn’t a clue what he’s done and how bailing out banks was a crossbreed of communism with supercapitalism.free markets with sensible regulation combined with allowing bad businesses to die off is best for us(not the elites) . this(and not socialism) mimics nature , which seems imperfect or callous to the left, but has provided the west with the highest standard of living in all recorded history , and migration TO the west is proof .globalization has been maligned as evil because of
serious flaws that do require fixing , but balanced trade is important to the ideal of bringing cultures together without conflict through the necessity of interdependance .actual warfare costs in human life is eclipsed only by what the soviets practiced against their own people .(80 million corpses can’t be wrong*post perastrioka released data)
political extremists claim we have little freedom of expression to protest against the “system” , but has there been dissidents here rounded up and shipped to artic gulags?
even walmart has started to tighten up against chinese suppliers’ labour abuse(by stopping purchases) in response to criticism .did the soviets allow independant unions or did castro allow consumer protests ? people here can tell a president to go f*** himself without winning a free bullet to the neck .
even if our elections are only about the tallest pigmy ,we do have enormous collective consumer influence , a gift of free markets . i chose a toyota built in ontario instead of the gas guzzling land yacht partly paid for by my taxes handed to gm by a liberal last year .and now they (gm)are back for more!those idiots held back their EVOLT while toyota invests in hybrids ,and the liberal ontario government remains more obstructionist against licensing alternative energy vehicles than most american states (citing “safety concerns” whilst issuing plates for motorbikes that can do 150 mph/11sec1/4 mile)
> multinational oil companies play hell with nations but, is it worst than what putin did for chechin oil , or what the chinese gov’t does for sudan’s janja-dickweeds? again there were canadian investers who got out of sudan for being ostracized over their client’s atrocities .
i regularly shame canadian lefties who wax self rightous against america with the sickening facts about our own nation and the stories told to me first hand by coworkers who fled ukrainia ,hungary , romania , czechoslovakia ,iran, poland , tibet, vietnam , etc . i’m not talking about stray bombs/random violence like current iraq, more like secret police and informants , the stuff that makes your skin crawl.
there’s nothing more soul destroying to societies than the big brother perfected by stalin and mao tsetung .the poisoning of trust right down into the family unit ( saddam hussein so admired this method and left a legacy of guilt that no amount of american bombs could equal in mental trauma – omnipresent in the lives of russians and iraqis).
iraq was a write-off before any american stepped foot there, at least for the current generation .soft westerners don’t have the stomach to amputate a rotten limb to save a life .and they cry loud about western unfairness against iraq when we all know the shiit(PERSIAN) majority was forever screwed by saddam’s sunnis(ARAB) and glad a retard finally was stupid enough to do something so costly for us .
jew haters can screw off with their theories about WTC , unless they want to include Clinton in the “plot”, since there was a solid earlier history of sunni attacks ,or
is it hebrew teachers in those pakistani/ saudi hate schools?
A poison to our flawed but salvageable semidemocracy is islamofacism , a movement just as intolerant of individual freedom as communism.there will be only room on this planet for one of the three . i will not accept slavery .
Everyone on this board talking about the Soviet Union has no idea what Bolshevism was about. They can’t differentiate Bolshevism vs. Stalinism or Maoism and therefore their opinions about “Communism,” or “socialism” are incomplete and flawed.
The level of ignorance in the United States – and the west in general – regarding Second International socialism, Bolshevism, and the labor parties in their own countries is astounding, considering the profound and positive impact such politics has had on western society. Without active and militant socialist politics in the west (the US included), there would be no 8-hour day, no right to organize, no social security, a stillborn civil-rights movement, no escape from Vietnam. Its no surprise though, given the amount of headache that these movements gave the ruling class in all of these countries, and its the ruling class that writes the education curriculum.
I can’t believe anyone with any sense would write this article. You should have done your homework before you made the attempt. Conservatives give 30% of their income to charity than liberals do. Don’t blame the conservatives for America’s starving hungry, blame the liberals for their stinginess.
You go on blaming conservatives saying they are selective in their giving and don’t give to the poor. That, too, is a lie. When prorated for income, it is the poor who dig deepest into their own pockets to give. The poor give more than twice as much of their income as the middle class, and about 30% more than the rich. And religious conservatives give four times as much as secular liberals. Liberals believe the government should do all the giving, effectively making “giving” totally involuntary. Yet, conservatives still pay taxes just as liberals do, and they STILL give in spite that more money is coming out of their pockets. Don’t assume it’s for the taxes–most average conservatives don’t bother to claim the giving on their taxes.
Most of the giving to foundations that do not directly help the poor tends to be by higher class people. They give to their own. The poor give to other poor–they also give to their own.
I think your article is bigoted towards conservatives, and even more bigoted against the poor you hypocritically say you support–you have ignored the power of their giving altogether. To you the poor are utterly helpless, unless they serve your egotistical moral high ground.
I am embarrased and appalled by the lack of empathy and compassion in what is to be the “most religous country in the world”, i.e., Christian. My country being the U.S. If children are starving, than so is our potential for the future. If we can’t take care of our own, at home, then what is to become of the U.S.?
In my opinion, the Conservatives (i.e., Limbaugh, Gingrish, Hannity, etc.) think it is a burden to educate and feed those who will be responsible for the future of this country. I don’t understand the logic of turning your heads, or accusing the poor of being stupid, or denying school children a free lunch when it might be their only meal. All I understand is that if we want our nation to be strong and for the world to look up to what we stand for, we have to take care of our own, even before we take care of the rest of the world. Why is this such a hard concept to accept? By any American?
As I travel around the world, people don’t understand how there are those in such dire need in the “Land of Milk and Honey”, or “The House on the Hill”.
[…] patience, whom the government regards as only “marginally valuable to society,” to use the half-assed vocabulary of socialism — people, in other words, who would otherwise have spent their own money to obtain the care […]
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Well, it seems as though the author has brought out some points that I, as a fiscal conservative, have long thought incredibly important. I would like to say here, before I begin my tirade, that while I disagree with much of what you had to say, I am proud to speak to you civilly and be able to express my opinions in a calm, collected way. I see everyone, even those on the opposite side of the political spectrum as me, as fellow human beings worthy of respect and dignity. I am proud to be an American with you.
First and foremost, the best cure for poverty is: *drum-roll* EDUCATION. Scary, right? Have people forgotten the old maxim, “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, etc.”? I believe we should be teaching our children to invest, so that EVERY American can have a slice of the finance-market’s pie. This is a very simple to pronounce but hard to comprehend(for…some) doctrine called “Natural Redistribution of Wealth”, wherein it is said that the best way to get more people in to the middle class isand more people out of the low and high class is to arm them with the best education possible. And this means more funding. Now, just throwing money at education won’t make it better; I would suggest tougher regulations and higher standards. How about adding a year (or two) to high school? Why not make FOUR years of civics classes, two years of personal finance classes, and a year of Investment classes MANDATORY? A study done by Congress in the 1980’s led to this glorious conclusion: education is the number-one cause of dis-satisfaction in America. WOW.
So now we know why our system is failing at the roots. Education, as revealled by the omnipotent (peace be upon this most holy group of sages!) Government, is bad.
Why is it that in an AP English Literature class no one but the teacher and I knew who Fyodor Dostoevsky was, or who the Chairman of the Federal Reserve was, or who the Speaker of the House of Representitives was? Our educational system leaves civics, literature, presonal financing, competitive ideals and most all humainties to the wind.
Second, charity has proved more efficient than welfare has on it’s own scale. Charity is meant for those who need help and CANNOT help themselves. Welfare is meant for those who either can’t or just won’t work for a higher station in life. Now, for those who actually can’t, I believe there should be a Federal Job Corps for anyone who qualifies. There is no reason a person shouldn’t, with more education, be able to make more money than they previously did. And I, even as a Libertarian, don’t believe that welfare programs should be totally abolished. I just think we should try to ween people off of them so that they can live independent, fulfilling lives as self-made people. Welfare, however, can be cheated, as I have known personally to be the case. I live in Memphis, TN, one of the biggest trash-bins in the Western Hemisphere, and know of many individuals who HAVE MORE CHILDREN so that their welfare checks will increase in value. Now, I don’t believe in punishing children for their parents’ mistakes, but there should be some tougher standards on those with children in the welfare system, i.e. making for damn sure that the children, and not the parents, are the prime beneficiaries of the money given. This, good friends, brings us to our next point: children.
I do not believe that children have the same responsibilities as adults. They obviously need care, and the Government, as far as I’m concerned, should be able to care for them if their parents fail to. This could mean, as mentioned above, giving the parents more funds while strictly observing them, placing the child in custody of someone in the child’s immediate family with more income, or putting the parents in a Federal Job Corps and let them go off into the wild blue yonder with more education and enhanced skills so as to better provide for their young. I’m not a huge fan of the second aforementioned option, mind you, but the welfare of America’s children means more to me than the welfare of their parents. The private sector, of course, through charity, could do just as much; churches, mosques, and synagogues could send the family clothes and money (as my church often does), neighbors could send them dinner-baskets, or they could be taught to garden and given seeds (what MY family does). That they often don’t is a terrible shame, and a social movement should come along to fix that.
I believe the government should provide our people with better education, and thus naturally redistribute the wealth of the next generation in a fair and unbiased manner. I believe also in the power of charity. One man from a town called Nazareth happened to base the world’s largest religion based on the principle of kindness, creating a faith that dominates the entire Western Hemisphere to this day. I see no reason why it couldn’t change our nation’s fabric and make things better for all it’s inhabitants.
Thank you very much for your article and for allowing me the opportunity to comment. I am Phat Brady, the Mad Libertarian, and my cry for the world today is, “Smaller Government, Better Teaching, and Bigger Hearts.”
“Therefore as we have opportunity, let us do good unto ALL men, especially those of the household of faith.” Galations, 6:10
People are going hungry since Obama is ignoring the business world of the US – letting unemployment soar, and people suffer in massive numbers.
Why is Obama such a cruel individual, that he works hard to make people suffer?
i’m fascinated by the sheer number of “libertarian” and “conservitive” [SIC] who seem to think that it’s just a matter of the Right Republican and all will be well– and yet somehow think that the “failure” of the USSR or the opening of China is dispositive of a progressive/ liberal agenda.
Of course the fact that the opening of the Berlin Wall was a “mistake”, that Reagan piled on the national debt by upping the nuclear arms race and it was precisely the market inevitable race to the bottom that created the current economic crisis are the ugly truths that undercut much of the logic above . . ..
I understand that it is unlikely that an of the above flag wavers for Capitalism are likely to plunk down the ducats to see a film with an alternative viewpoint, but MMoore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” answers pretty much all of their comments/ objections.
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