Political Ramblings

[DennisK]

Well, yes, I know many of you do not think this forum is appropriate for political topics. Please let me disagree. I feel safe to say that we are country folk – if not in land, then in heart. Believe it or not, politics is a relevant part of country living – right along with fowls, cows, goats and sheep; so why the aversion? I have read many of the politically charged threads in BYC, and I haven’t found any more offensive posts than those posts covering other subjects. As far as our youth is concerned, they will be taking the rains soon enough – best they know in which kind of wagon they will be riding. After all, we are randomly rambling in this section – are we not?

 

[punk-a-doodle]

I rent. Most landlords have severely limited what can be done inside the house and in any yard space. Many locations did not allow plants to grow well in window boxes due to issues with lighting from poorly designed windows, etc. Watering gardens costs money, as does improving poor soil (or working with polluted, heavy metal laden soil), or supplemental lighting. When looking at rentals in my price range, I have run into slum lords. A bit poorer, or being inexperienced in how to go about renting/caught in one of many situations that would require renting without seeing a place in person, and I may very well have been living in one of the one room spaces, some lacking toilets, some with completely rotten floors, some lacking electricity, and many with no windows. If you are one of the people who are too poor to rent you may end up shelling out more in the long run by living in hotels (the book "Nickle and Dimed" explains this...or I've seen plenty such hotels driving through some areas), and will find gardening hard to do. I can also attest that if you live in your car...you will have a hard time gardening. This is especially true if you have no idea how to garden...or cook. I will have to try to find an article for it, but does anyone remember a project that provided homeless people with housing. The problem was, they did not understand that people would have to be taught how to live in that environment (and I'd imagine our gap on understanding mental issues didn't help). Many of the homes were ruined when the new residents did things like use the corners for urinals, try to light a trash an fire in the middle of a room for warmth, etc.

Did you know that in 2010 41 percent of SNAP participants lived in households where someone is employed? Have you tried working three part-time jobs, then coming home to garden? Or riding public transportation to a workplace that is far from where you live?

If people around you are abusing the system...please report them.

 

[MamaRoo]

"A lot of them" ? What is your source for this information?

Seriously.

I used to work at the county hospital. Walked home past 'the projects' - old style multiplexes, each with a bit of yard. Yes, a few of them were trash piles, but the majority had normal stuff, a beat up barbecue, broken plastic kids toys, a couple old lawn chairs, laundry draped over the fence to dry. These were normal people. A few were flower gardens. One that was right next to the sidewalk was an old man growing roses. He'd prune them, water them by hand. Once I saw him mowing his lawn - with a weedwhacker. Guess a lawnmower was out of his budget. A few were vegetable gardens. I guess they bought seeds with their SNAP cards, but how they paid for fertilizer, stakes, etc is unclear to me. Maybe they sold their free bags of out-of-date rice from the food banks. Also unclear how they dealt with the multitude of rats that infested the area. Fleas. Cockroaches. When someone would move out the (county?) would quarantine the apartment, seal it shut with plastic and bomb it with chemicals to try to get rid of the critters. There'd be a big orange sign on the door telling everyone what they were doing, so I'm not speculating.

I'd also go past the food bank. The line was always two blocks long before it even opened. Yep. Working the system. Standing in line for hours to get a bag of rice. Drat those freeloaders anyway.

 

[mom'sfolly]

My point was actually that many people have said stuff like people on foodstamps drive a nicer car than I do, have nicer clothes than I do, etc...

You can't tell a person's circumstances by their clothing or car or by what they buy at the grocery store. I don't smoke, but I buy a lot of cigarettes. I drive a poor old lady shopping, so she is getting out of a nice car. I give away very nice clothing, so the people look well dressed. Appearances are deceptive. And that is what all these stories are; they are about who, and what the poor appear to be. This is often filtered through the lens of our own prejudices and opinions.

In terms of dealing with poverty, most people would rather ignore the facts and look through own tinted glasses.

 

[hemet dennis]

All this talk about taxes is saddening. You're all missing the painfully obvious solution:

Cut spending.

Cut all foreign aid, get rid of the Departments of Energy, Commerce, Education, Interior, and HUD, get rid of the TSA, stop subsidies (corporate welfare), and bring our soldiers home as a starting point. While we're at it, we ought to get the Navy back to patrolling trade routes and guarding the coasts while ending the federal war on drugs.

Good starting point in my opinion.

When you have almost half the people paying no income taxes do they really care how the money is spent ? When you have more people paying the bills then you have more people asking what their paying for.

Or as I like to say "when you have some skin in the game you care more about the game"

 

[Capvin]

Q-9...First, it is well settled that you do not get to make the determination of what laws may or may not be constitutional or not. You, and others, may not like that, but that is the case. There are many people sitting in Federal prisons who decided that they would not obey a law that they deemed to be unconstitutional. The Courts are the final arbiter of that question, not some jerk water sheriff
Second: If you can not see that it is the same type of persons that are making this "I will refuse to obey or I will refuse to enforce" noise that refused to desegregate and it took Federal troops to force them to obey what was the law of the land. You do not remember, but quite a few people felt that the laws regarding desegregation was unconstitutional even though the Supreme Court said otherwise. My point is NOT dishonest or foolish. It is correct on all four corners and that is what is making you angry because you do not want to be associated with that bunch.
Third: What you may consider to be common sense is viewed by quite a few others (in fact the majority) as pig headed and dumb and that is not elitism.
Fourth: This may come as a suprise, but Congress can ( and does all the time) vote away some individual rights and sometimes those laws are upheld as reasonable restrictions on a subject and sometimes the Courts hold they went too far and strike them down. But until such time as they are striken, those laws are the law of the land. And remember, Congress votes on the law but then the Executive branch puts it into law.
Sixth: I do not mock that sheriff for not being an important national figure. I mock him because he is a self serving jerk who has no business being in law enforcement. Let him run for Congress because that is where the real jerks are.
Seventh: The Supreme Court has ruled many times and in many instances that the law can and does regulate weapons and speech. Sorry that you have just figured that out. So when you are looking for how the Federal Govt got that authority, go to law school and read the myriad of case law.
Eigth: From your last line I believe that you have been born about a century too late and on the wrong continent.

 

[rufus]

I haven't been to church in sixty years, but it really burns me when I see liberal democrats mocking religious belief. They always seem to pick on Christians; they don't have the guts to mock Muslims.

 

[redhen]

You dont have to click on a thread if it bothers you,..,

 

[chickened]

Chicken talk can be very political... just tell a breeder they have flaws with thier birds...

 

[redhen]

Yes..it says its discouraged...not forbidden. And should be confined to the RR forum..
That makes sense to me..