It mentions the welfare of the United States, not it's citizens.

> It mentions the welfare of the United States, not it's citizens.

Is there a difference.

You might not like Welfare, but it is hardly unconstitutional. If you like, consider it an anti-riot tax.

Seems like a HUGE difference to me. Anyway I guess this is a case where we agree to disagree. I for one am against any form of socialism at all because it takes the desire to better yourself, and by extension your society, out of the equasion. You are in essence rewarding the lazy and penalizing the driven. That is exactly opposite of the way it should be. Again, this is talking about welfare, not disability.

> I for one am against any form of socialism at all because it takes the desire to better yourself, and by extension your society, out of the equasion.

I agree, pure socialism doesn't work for exatly that reason, and that has been proven over and over again. But pure capitalism doesn't work either, it creates too much misery for some people. The amount that welfare costs the rich is small, the benefit to those that need it large. There are those who abuse it, but there are a lot of people who do not have a lot of choices in life, no matter how driven they are.

If somebody wants to make it, they can. Especially in the U.S. People crying about being poor.....I just don't buy it. I see temps come in for their first day where I work, saying they just need a chance, then they don't show up the next day. I can go out and find a job in one day, yet I don't even have a high school diploma. If you want something, it's up to you. Even if you're just making $5.15/hr, you may be poor compared to the rest of the US, but you'd be in the 99th percentile of the richest people throughout history. For those that convince themselves that they can't make it, or they spend all their money on heroin and alcohol or whatever, I feel sorry for them. I really do. But I know they brought it on themselves. This socialist attitude of 'someone else is responsible for me (as in the government) if I don't take control of my own life' just doesn't fly for me. And no, I'm not rich. I'm starting out at the bottom just like everyone else.

As for welfare, nobody starves in America. You can have a meal for less than 50 cents. Ramen noodles only cost about 10 cents a pack. You can find free water almost anywhere. So if you're on welfare, you're living better than many people in the world. Even if you're poor and not on welfare, you're much better off than many people for the simple reason that you're free and have the opportunity to make something of yourself. The only welfare that I think would be appropiate is for serious disability and food stamps for really poor children. No able-bodied and sane human is incapable of taking care of themselves; they just choose not to.

EDIT: "pure capitalism doesn't work either, it creates too much misery for some people."

What do you mean by this? People start having nervous breakdowns? The US is pretty darn close to pure capitalism, although it keeps straying away. The only reason pure capitalism wouldn't work is because of monopolies. Somebody like Bill Gates would just keep getting more and more powerful and his sons and grandsons would keep getting more and more powerful to the point that they were more powerful than the entire nation and the govenment. They would in effect become a government. But that's why we have anti-trust laws.

> As for welfare, nobody starves in America....No able-bodied and sane human is incapable of taking care of themselves

What about housing? Transportation? Medical bills? I really don't want to be insulting, because it is a decent argument, but I suspect that a lot of people who maintain it have plenty of opportunities and don't really see the people that don't.

> The US is pretty darn close to pure capitalism, although it keeps straying away.

There is no country in the world that is pure capitalism, and the reason is that people would indeed starve in the street. In pure capitalism there is no reason to help anyone else, it is pure Darwinism. And while Darwinism may be a natural way for the natural world, it is ugly and would be unpalatable to people of conscience.

Reminds me of a quote:
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." - Winston Churchill

It is abhorrent to me that the government forces hard-working people to pay for the livelyhood of those people who are just too damn lazy to work for themselves.

It must be great to live in a country where there is a job for everyone that wants one. That is NOT the case in many other countries in the world.

Rob
(Someone who pays a hell of a lot more toward supporting those "lazy" people than you do in the US)

"US is pretty darn close to pure capitalism, although it keeps straying away"

Ok, really this just isn't true, and I'm glad its not. I don't like big government, but, as has been mentioned before, pure captitalism is an extreme and flawed end at which we do not want to find ourselves. I don't want to wax religious on you (although, with the way this thread is going, I wouldn't be suprised if we put it all into the mix), but any system of government, economics, etc. designed by mankind is going to be flawed. That is truly the brilliance of the U.S constitution: these guys knew they couldn't create the perfect government because there is none, so they gave us something flexable that could bend without breaking. There are plenty of examples of the framers of our gorvenmnet setting up ways to dilute pure systems that could end up being destructive. This is one of the reasons we have a three branch system of government.

We are far from socialism, but we are not, nor were we ever intended to be, pure capitalists.

-Jeff

(Someone who pays a hell of a lot more toward supporting those "lazy" people than you do in the US)

Oof, no kidding. That's one of the things that scares me about the way things have been going. I don't particularly want to pay 80% to taxes. That's one of the problems in Canada. Esp. since it's because of socialized health care. Of course, health care there pretty much sucks, which is why there are so many doctors set up on the US-Canada border. People just don't realize what we have in this country.

Jeeze, that was a weird paragraph. ;8^)

> (although, with the way this thread is going, I wouldn't be suprised if we put it all into the mix)

Hehe, it's the nature of political debate; everything ties into everything else.

I'm sure you were being somewhat sarcasic here, but obviously, there's not. (The unemployment rate in the US is currently at about 5.5%, which is low compared to many places, but still significant.) I've been out of work for 8 months now, and I'm having trouble finding a job. Given, I could probably go work at the McDonalds instead of as a systems administrator, but I hardly consider myself lazy. (Well, actually, I do, but not in this instance.)

Well I guess it depends on what you consider pure capitalism. I guess you could say it's no government at all, anarchy/darwinism, whatever you want to call it. But then you'd have to also say that the entire world is living in pure capitalism right now, because in this definition of capitalism governments will inevitably spring up, hence the result is the entire world as it exists today. So then you end up with capitalism not really existing or meaning anything at all.

I see capitalism as a nation with a limited government; only an organization to maintain order, defend the nation, and regulate monopolies. Now the trick is to create a government that is empowered by the entire people, not just a chosen few as socialist and communist governments usually end up. I think the framers of the constitution did a good job of this.

I'm just curious how much does everyone here pay in taxes? Be sure to include what country you're in.

I pay a little less than 20%, but I think I may be getting a lot of that sent back next april. I did when I was under 18, but I'm not sure if they will now that I'm a legal adult.

> I guess you could say it's no government at all, anarchy...only an organization to maintain order, defend the nation, and regulate monopolies

I agree with your second statement. Anarchy implies no laws at all. Pure Capitalism has laws and the means to enfore them, it just means no reditribution of wealth. Those that suceed and make money keep it and those that don't get squat. It means no welfare, unemployment, disability, work programs, or food stamps. It also implies no subsidies and very small and non-graded taxes. Taxes would still be levied at a minimal rate, but not for the purposes of redistribution of welath; only for a small amount of services like infrastructure, some civil servants (such as cops and firemen), and defense. Basically the economic part of the platform of the Libertarian party. It is a tempting view, but flawed in my opinion. If pure Socialism's weakness is that it believes too much in the inherent goodness of people, pure Capitalism's is that it panders to to their inherent selfishness.

> not just a chosen few as socialist and communist governments usually end up

Just don't confuse the two. Democracy and despotism are opposite sides of the same line, and Socialism and Capitalism are opposite sides of a perpindicular line. Communism was really just Socialist despotism (or perhaps oligarchy). Many countries, especially in Europe, lean towards a Democratic Socialism, and Nazi Germany was a pretty decent example of a Capitalist despotism, or the even better example of some Italian cities-states in the Renaissance.

> I think the framers of the constitution did a good job of this.

I agree. And I am not knocking Capitalism, it really seems to be the natural economic methodology for humans. I just think that it needs to be tempered a little bit.

I only have time to respond to one point....

"Capitalism's is that it panders to to their inherent selfishness."

You don't succeed by being greedy. You succeed by being successful, greedy or not.

> You succeed by being successful, greedy or not.

That's not really what I was trying to say. The pure Capitalist system doesn't care about the unsuccessful, for whatever the reason is that they are. Capatlism has no moral basis and creates no moral judgments. Society itself has to.

You don't think Capitalism is based on greed? Greed motivates people, which is why Socialism fails. To quote Gordan Gecko, "Greed is good". Ok, so maybe that is perhaps not the best source to use. How about one from the father of modern economics, John Maynard Keynes:

"Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all."

I'm not saying that is bad. Hell, it works, supply side economics is not all complete BS. But it alone is not enough.

You keep judging people on their morales. Let people freely trade amongst eachother as they like, and let God sort out the good and bad in the afterlife. Anything other than free trade is oppression. If you wanted to trade one of your spare empegs to a friend of yours for a bicycle or whatever, do you think someone should come in and dictate how the barter should go down? Or would you tell'em to go mind their own f'ing business and let you and your friend do what you like? Is that being greedy? Or just fair?

It's like you want someone to come and control your life for you. I don't get it. God put us all on this earth just the same. Why would I want to forfeit the right to another man to come and tell me what to do? If someone wants to be greedy, than I'll let them be greedy. It's none of my business. If someone wants to give everything they have to charity, then I'll let them give everything they have to charity. It's none of my business. As some guy once said, "the right to swing your fist ends where my nose starts." And that's how it should be. You have the right to swing your fists like a damn madman as long as you don't hit anyone in the nose. I'm in no position to judge why the hell someone swings their fists. Just don't hit me in the nose. If someone wants to self-destruct by being greedy, then there's nothing I can do. And making money isn't being greedy. You're not taking money away from anyone. You are in effect creating the money. If you carve a chair out of wood then you have made something worthless into something of value. The chair is only worth anything because someone is willing to trade their money for it. It's a fair trade. Why is it fair? Because their willing to do it. That's not being greedy. That's just making a living. Nobody forces anyone to buy or do anything.

There's a lot of stuff that you say that doesn't make sense. You say that people have the right to do what they want to do, yet, there are boundaries. If I buy a tank of gas, and burn it in my backyard, and all the smoke ends up in your lungs, then what? You won't be able to do *anything* to me, because your rights end at my nose. Government should not interfere.

What of other countries? If truly free trade is considered above all else, then when nations with abundant access to labor built products at significantly lower cost than American workers, then it is completely all right for them to be put out of jobs, completely all right for them to starve on the streets. Realistically, in the face of free trade, there will always be one or another company that will produce better and cheaper products and if free trade was truly the case, will completely annihilate industries on a national level.

Calvin