Republican Debate?

[Ridgerunner]

mom'sfolly :

Anyone else wish we had a time limited campaign? I would love to see a rule with no campaign ads until six months before the election. I think it is horrible that presidential campaigns basically start as soon as the election is over.

So you are proposing we repeal the Free Speech Amendment? Honestly, that worries me. And how do you propose we decide what constitutes a campaign add? Let the party in office handle it? I don't like the campaigning either, but I think it is one of the prices we pay for some of our freedoms.

And for presidential elections, I would love a national voting period...say from 5 am East Coast time to 9 pm Alaska/Hawaii time. This would even the playing field for the west coast, without knowing the outcome of elections before voting is finished in the West.

This idea I like.​

 

[frostbite]

I suppose I could solve the 6 months vs. free speech issue by just turning off the telly and the radio and going outside to work on my chicken coop. The power of the on/off switch! (I do have a constitutional right to tune out the airwaves, right?)

 

[chickened]

Or truly "helping" them either.
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[Ridgerunner]

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That's how I handle the problem, garden as well as chickens.

Take responsibility to handle it myself instead of relying on the government to do it for me.

 

[Royd]

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Our life experienced color our thinking, even for those that see everything in only black and white, with no gray anywhere. I've got relatives that have abused the welfare system. I've seen businesses that have abused the regulations. We are dealing with people in an unfair world. Some will do what is right, even if they are poor. Some will abuse the system, even if they are business owners. Some stories:

My nephew was drawing $11 an hour in unemployment. The only jobs he could find to even apply for paid $8 per hour and would require a move to a place of his own. If he was not working, he could live with his widowed grandmother, not pay rent other than his labor and part of the groceries, help take care of her with the $11 an hour, and help her raise a garden and can and freeze quite a bit of vegetables to help her out. Would you seriously look for an $8 an hour job under those circumstances until the $11 ran out? If you have never been in similar circumstances, be careful how you answer. That $8 was without benefits.

My grandparents came from way back in the hills. Before Medicare and Medicaid, and before I was born, my grandfather had a stroke. There was no money for medical treatment. He lay in bed at home with his wife and family from when he had the stroke in September until he died in December. Can you inmagine the mood in that house while he lay there dying? Can you imagine what his wife was going through, trying to figure out how to raise a bunch of kids without a husband? Maybe that's part of why Mom never made it past 4th grade.

Parts of the system are broken. I have no problem with helping people that really need help, but yeah, some people learn to milk the system. It becomes a generational thing. You have exceptions, I'm one, but people that are born into poverty tend to remain in poverty. That's what they learn from their parents. There education does not prepare them for success. And by education, I don't just mean schools but also their life experiences and what they learn from their parents and other role models. I'm a strong believer in a good education, but the best of schools cannot overcome bad parents or people that don't even know how to be good parents. If they were not taught to be good parents, how can you expect a majority to be good parents? How do you break that cycle? How do you solve that problem? Have the government take over a lot of raising the kids? Hitler showed it can work with his youth programs, but with the government taking over raising the kids, you are on a real slippery slope that I don't want to go to.

People that are not used to having money look at it differently than people that are used to having some. Instead of looking to the future, they look to the present. What can I get for this money now because I'm not going to have any in the future. An example. Many decades ago in my youth, a trailer burned down. The family lost everything. It was covered on TV and others donated about $60,000 to help the family out. So they made a down payment on a new trailer, a down payment on a new car, a down payment on a TV, and several other down payments. They did not pay anything off, just made down payments. Back then, for $60,000 they could have bought a lot of that stuff, totally paid it off. But they did not know how to handle money so within a few months, they were back with nothing. It seems like stupidity, but I think it was more that they just did not understand.

I don't know how you fix the problems. You have to have written rules and regulations for people to qualify for help. Some people are going to find a way to abuse any written system. It is practically impossible to put something on paper that somebody can't figure out a way around. And it is not necessarily laziness. Often you can do better milking the system than holding down a regular job. I think a lot of it is that it is a learned behavior. They can get by at a certain acceptable level by milking the system and maybe getting cash for other under-the-table taxfree jobs. Their ambition and pride is such that that is a perfectly acceptable way of living. I could not do it. I saw how much it hurt Dad to accept the free peanut butter and such when he hit a rough spot due to the economy changing and him finding that his kids needed cash for school lunches and school clothes. He could not raise those on the farm, so he had to take a factory job. He wanted to farm, not work in a factory. But he had the pride and responsibility that he was going to take care of his family.

I think a start is to reduce the benefits to a point that they allow people to live but don't allow them to live better than having a job. Enough for a safety net but not enough for a satisfactory way of life. Also, I saw how my niece finally started really looking for a job when some of her welfare benefits ran out or depended on her getting training and finding a job. I think this kind of reform will help, but how you put the laws on paper in written form to stop people from figuring a way to abuse it, I don't know. How do you break that family tradition of not trying to better yourself? That concept of not trying to better yourself and taking care of yourself is so foreign to me, I just don't have a clue.

And sadly, we have a political party which sees and understands this too well. When someone actually sees a vision beyond the secure plantation, and strives to better themselves, they are demagogued, because they may accidently start an uprising and take away all of that political power.

 

[chickened]

That would be "robbing peter to pay paul" You could lose your corporation status if you did that. In a sole proprietorship you could get away with it but it is risky.
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[Ridgerunner]

I look at it that we have two parties that are real good at demogoguing (sp?. Hey, let's create a new word). And by that, I mean appealing to emotion instead of logic and misrepresenting the facts. Both parties are real good about getting people fired up and usually about insignificant or imaginary issues. By demonizing the opponents, they try to make sure we cannot have an honest conversation. Emotion gets in the way.

 

[chickened]

I know you are being facetious so I will to, I am not sure there are poor people anymore in the U.S., maybe poor in spirit which is what Jesus was concerned with as his offer is everlasting life not 2 cars in every driveway. If one truly wants to help the poor go to a part of the world where there are actually poor people. We have no concept of poor as the larger part of the world knows it.

Every election I will hear all the scare tactics aimed at the poor and elderly from the Dems and the same tactics are used by the Republicans only it is "you will be taxed off the planet. Both sides know to hit you where it hurts but in reality those issues never change. The poor will always be with us and there will always be the rich and the resentment towards them always, it is the system. If I practiced "loving my neighbor as myself" I would not harbor bad feelings for either political party to pander to.
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[AquaEyes]

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Jesus isn't a socialist. Saying Jesus is socialist is like saying MLK was racist!

Others apparently disagree with you, and the linked sites provide biblical references.

http://www.lcurve.org/writings/BiblicalLiberal.htm

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/is-jesus-christ-a-socialist/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_socialism


It just goes along with what I say -- if you look hard enough for something in that book, you can find it.

 

[FourPawz]

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Remember, this country is a representative republic, as opposed to a pure democracy. With a system of pure popular vote, smaller states' citizenery would be steamrolled by the large metropolitan populations forevermore. I'm assuming you have chickens, so do you have an interest in animals and in farming? Do you really want the citizens of NYC, Los Angeles and Chicago having all of the power to elect the executive branch of our government from now on out?