Conservative VS Liberal

[Cleo's Mom 257]

You constantly put your own swing upon what others say.

In this world, people do things to bring about the 'problems' that they have in life. If only they would think about the results of their actions BEFORE they do what they do. Consequences for your own actions should be a part of life. It teaches us and helps us to grow and change so that we will be better. Without consequences, people will go on living as they have and never change, and therefore, always be having problems. People need to be responsible for their choices, and when the "parent", whoever plays that roll, continuously bails the child out and paves the way for them to continue to live in that way, it is a shame. The "parent" does the child a disservice. He hinders the child from growth and maturity. Shame on the parent who does that to their child!

Shame on the government for doing that to the people they govern!

No one wants to see anyone get AIDS or any other "consequence" from their wrong choices in life, but sometimes, enduring consequences is needed in order for the person, and especially for the other people viewing the consequences, to stop their behavior.

He may have not worded what he was trying to point out to the people in an eloquent way, but what he was trying to say was clear. People must go through the consequences for their actions in order for those consequences to lesson for others. We learn from the mistakes and trials that we have gone thorough and those that we see going through them.

"No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." (Hebrews 12:11)

It never ceases to amaze me the lengths you will go to to defend indefensible positions of the right. He said "he hopes people have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby..". That is NOT just an ineloquent way of stating a position, that is saying he hopes people get AIDS. That babies get AIDS. Period. And AIDS can kill. Now, you call it what you want but I will call it for what it is:

HATEFUL, VICIOUS, MEAN-SPIRITED and ANTI-LIFE. And if you want to continue to quote the bible, blah, blah, blah to defend this, then do so. I tell it like it is.

And, btw, not a single other person voted against this bill, including his fellow republicans who cut a wide berth around him after his statement. But you, pattygreen, you stand with him. Also very telling.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

{Cleo's quote} "Just when I thought I had heard all there was from hateful, mean-spirited republicans, I recently learned about the following."...{end quote}

That's republicans with an "S". You are speaking of all republicans when you quote your rants about the few.

Wrong again. I am making the distinction between republicans and democrats. Because all the hateful, mean-spiritied talk is coming from right wing talk radio and tv and those in congress who vote no on bills to help struggling unemployed, for example. But maybe those lazy unemployed need to suffer the consequences for being unemployed in the first place and what better way than to deny benefits. That will teach them!!!

[Cleo's Mom 257]

And again, nice try, but read your quote again. You said: "this violence of which you speak is all in your head..." In other words, you didn't believe that ANY of the tea party was violent. It was all in my head you said. Ha!! I proved you wrong about that just like I have about so many things.

I will clear up what I meant when I said that. "This violence that you speak of, (when you speak of the teapartiers as a whole), is all in your head." I have NEVER denied that there are a few in every group that make any group look bad by their stupid actions.

So don't try to get out of what you said or try to explain it away or twist the words now. The proof is in your post. Period.

Nice try, but I'm not going to let you backpedal now to get out of what you said. Like I said the proof is in your post and I will use it again and again when I feel it necessary and when you accuse me of calling you a racist.

BTW, I am still waiting for you to provide those posts.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

I suppose cleo's is okay with the government paying for all those signs to advertise how the stimulus has wasted our money. Just another way for government to spend our hard earned money frivilously.:thumbup:

Companies have to make those signs and someone has to erect them - both providing jobs. So, yes, that's a good thing. Plus I want people to know how the stimulus has improved things. And it has.

And I certainly support this use of my taxpayer dollars as opposed to corporate welfare.

Edited August 9, 2010 by Cleo's Mom

[Cleo's Mom 257]

I understand that liberals in general feel that the government should be the parent and fix all the peoples problems for them, but the fact is that the government should NOT. People need to endure the consequences for their actions so that they can mature and grow and change from their bad behavior. It wont happen if the government just "gives" the people the fix.

That's the whole basis for everything you believe: punishment.

-Punish women for having sex by forcing births

-Punish the unemployed for being lazy by denying benefits

-Punish the single mom for having the baby by cutting aid

-Punish the medicaid nursing home recipient because his/her family couldn't supply 24/7 skilled nursing care

And on top of it, you believe that everything the government provides for people is the result of their bad behavior. I guess getting old and receiving SS and medicare is the "bad behavior" of not dying young. I guess unemployment benefits is the result of the bad behavior of getting laid off. We've got to nip all this bad behavior in the bud. :thumbup: Because these are the big government entitlement programs. Everything else pales in comparison.

But the minute some problem or disaster happens, even a man-made one, like the BP oil spill, or the wall street crash, those on the right yap "what is the government going to do about it?" But try to regulate a company like BP to prevent or address future catastrophies and the right again yaps "that's big government, it stifles job growth, blah, blah, blah". What total hypocrites.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Republican Leaders Boehner, Cantor Trash Workers

Mon Aug 09, 2010 at 06:40:52 AM PDT

House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner has a few choice words for all the teachers, cops, fire fighters, and other workers who will be able to stay on the job because the U.S. Senate this week was able to break the Republican filibuster on the jobs bill.

He is calling these hard-working women and men: special interests. No different, apparently, from the special interests at the Wall Street banks, job-exporting corporations and big insurance companies Boehner and Republicans love to pal around with.

And as for autoworkers, House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has some choice words for you too. More on that below.

Boehner says the jobs bill (the House is expected to pass it next week), which provides $26 billion in funding to bolster state budgets, including $10 billion to prevent massive teacher layoffs, is a "payoff" to unions and special interests.

• But unlike Boehner’s real special interests—see above—the assistance for the workers who toil to support their families and pay mortgages is about $725 billion short of the Bush Bank bailout.
  

On top of that, it’s unlikely that any of the teachers or cops will be invited to play golf with Boehner at the tony country clubs where he’s hustled big-time donations from his bank buddies and corporate cronies for the Republican PAC Freedom Project. According to a Freedom Project spokesman, the golf outings have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from those special interest who shared 18 holes of golf and probably some 19th hole libations.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) says it is incredible that

Republican Leader John Boehner disparagingly referred to those who teach our children, protect our homes, and keep our streets safe as "special interests." Washington Republicans are opposed to supporting our teachers, firefighters and policemen at home in order to protect corporate tax loopholes that promote the export of American jobs.

The jobs bill that Boehner so adamantly trashed closes tax loopholes for multi-national corporations that send U.S. jobs overseas to help pay to keep American workers on the job. Maybe they’re Boehner’s golf partners.

Cantor piled on by insulting the nation’s auto workers, 55,000 more of whom are working today because of the Obama administration’s financial rescue of the U.S. auto industry

This week, President Obama made another visit to an auto plant where cars are coming off the assembly line because, writes Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen:

The White House wants to emphasize good economic news where it can be found, and more importantly, it wants to remind the public that at a moment of crisis last year, Obama

was right

about the industry rescue and Republicans were wrong.

That stuck in the craw of Cantor, who issued a statement asking, "Just who exactly is President Obama celebrating with?"

How about the autoworkers who have jobs? As Benen writes:

I know Eric Cantor isn't the sharpest crayon in the box.

But the easiest, most basic form of patriotism is taking at least some pleasure when good things happen to your country.

(Not the republicans. They don't want anything good to happen to the country less the democrats get the credit, which they deserve. Horrors!!)

Sure, Republicans don't want to talk about this—in part because good news interferes with their election strategy, and in part because this progress wouldn't have happened if they were in charge last year. Indeed, if we'd listened to Cantor and his cohorts, the American auto industry would be left in shambles, hundreds of thousands of jobs would be lost, and the backbone of American manufacturing would have been broken. At a moment of crisis, Republicans had it backwards.

But that's no excuse for Cantor's petty partisanship.

dailykos

Standing up for big corporations and against american workers - well that's par for the course (pun intended) for republicans.

Edited August 9, 2010 by Cleo's Mom

[BJean 16]

patty, you seriously think that the government should be in the business of punishing its' citizens?

WE are the government. WE THE PEOPLE. We the people, i.e., the government, should not spending time and money punishing people for bad predicaments. We should not be in the business of passing judgement on how someone made a decision or when they were born or to whom they were born or the fact that their employer decided that it was more lucrative to take their jobs elsewhere.

You talk about progressives having everything backwards and that they're going to hell for not believing as you do.

The rub seems to come in when one side is willing to lie and misrepresent to get into office. The rub is when we elect someone to represent us and they refuse to do the job we elected them to do because they don't want to work with the president or the people's representatives in congress from the other party. The rub comes in when they are so unhappy with any effort to truly improve the country that they do their best to convince voters that the majority party is a socialist party and that the leader of the free world is not a true American. They try to convince voters that to support the president and majority party means that one is also against free enterprise in America.

But the truth? The truth is that they are either already very wealthy or they stand to become wealthy by representing the most wealthy interests in this country rather than the comon folk. Which would be fair since the very wealthy are good American voters themselves, right?

But wait, if they were good Americans why they do business elsewhere? Why instead of employing Americans to help our own economy, do they help the economy of other countries? Why do they pour American dollars into other countries and they don't even pay their fair share of taxes? And as for those congressional representatives who represent big business interests in congress? They claim that anything big business or the wealthy in America do, is fair. And not only do they not have to pay their fair share in taxes, not only do they not employ Americans or invest those dollars in our economy, they resent and fight against anyone who wants to improve our economy and try to help those who have been put out of work by these anti-American practices. Why? Greed and avarice.

So we think YOU've got it backwards. We think that greed drives the wealthy. And avarice and greed and lying are not the things that God rewards in the next life. No matter how many times those folks claim to be "born again" God won't reward that kind of behavior. He believes, like you, in punishment. So, get ready... like you claim, here He comes!

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Mitchell Bard</H2>Writer and Filmmaker

Posted: August 8, 2010 01:52 PM

Krugman's Takedown of Ryan Demonstrates How Conservatives Are at War With the Middle Class

Conservatives routinely paint Barack Obama as a socialist looking to redistribute wealth in the United States. (Or worse, as Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) reported that tea party leaders, during a meeting, espoused paranoid delusions of a totalitarian takeover of the U.S. by Obama.) This charge is cynical and outrageous, not just because it is false and a naked attempt to use fear mongering to drum up votes, but because there is actually a group of Americans actively engaged in wealth redistribution, and they have been for quite some time.

Who are these people looking to move massive amounts of assets from one subsection of Americans to another? The conservatives themselves.

Beginning with the Reagan administration, and reaching its fullest realization during the presidency of George W. Bush, conservatives have systematically been acting to redistribute wealth from the middle class upward. The result has been the steady decay of the middle class, and it's all a result of conservative policies, specifically involving taxes and deregulation.

Bush successfully pushed through accelerated deregulation and massive tax cuts for the highest earners. The result was that while the wealthiest Americans saw substantial income gains, real income for the middle class was static (and far below the robust growth of the middle class during the Clinton administration). And when, in the absence of regulation, Wall Street's reckless bets nearly brought ruin to the financial industry, the result was a massive recession that severely hit the lower, working and middle classes.

As I lamented last month, middle and working class Americans have every right to be angry now, but that anger shouldn't be directed at the Democrats in November, but at the Republicans, whose policies created the economic mess the country finds itself in. Which is why I was so happy to see Paul Krugman's annihilation of the economic plan advanced by the so-called "intellectual" star of the Republican party, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Krugman exposed Ryan's plan for what it is, a replay of the Bush economic policies, only this time on steroids: A massive tax break for the wealthiest five percent of Americans that would cost the country $4 trillion over the next ten years, a tax increase for the other 95 percent of Americans, and monumental cuts in government spending that would cause catastrophic pain for the lower, working and middle classes (while having little effect on the wealthy, the primary beneficiaries of Ryan's plan). Oh, and Ryan's plan would add to the deficit, pushing it far beyond the current projections for 2020. (Of course, Ryan is touting the savings of his spending cuts without accounting for the costs of his tax cuts for the rich.)

I thought Krugman's exposure of the realities of the Ryan plan provided a solid summing up of current Republican ideology. On the surface, Ryan appears more reasonable than the more vocal leaders of his party. He tends to avoid the outrageous pronouncements of his fellow conservatives (think Sarah Palin, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and his talk of "velvet revolution," Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-MN) and House Minority Leader John Boehner, not to mention the lies and vitriol spouted by pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, as well as the consistent national security fear-mongering of Newt Gingrich, and the out-and-out insanity on parade daily in the media, like the recent charge by Colorado gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes that his Democratic opponent encouraged bike use as mayor of Denver as part of a plan to convert the city into a "United Nations community," not to mention the possible Queen of the wackos, Nevada GOP senate candidate Sharron Angle, including her claim that the press should ask the questions she wants to answer.).

Ryan is the young, normal-looking and sounding face Republicans would like to send out in front of the public, but, as Krugman comprehensively laid out, his policies are no more mainstream or plausible than those of his more obviously extreme colleagues. No, Ryan, just like the others, is completely dedicated to policies that empower corporations and transfer wealth upward, at the expense of the middle class.

In short, Ryan and the rest of the conservatives are at war with lower, working and middle class Americans.

The Republicans would like to frame the November midterm elections as a matchup between a socialist party looking to redistribute wealth and engineer a government takeover of the private sector (the Democrats) v. a party defending traditional American values of free market, capitalist economics (the Republicans). Such a framing of the two parties is a Republican fantasy, as accurate as the charge that President Obama was not born in the United States (which, according to a recent CNN poll, nearly two in five Republicans believe to be true).

But one look at the reality of the Bush years and the behavior of Republicans during the Obama administration paints a very different picture. On issue after issue, the Republicans have sided against the middle class, whether it was opposing financial regulation (even after GOP-touted deregulation resulted in the near financial collapse that plunged the country into deep recession), pushing for an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, opposing any kind of job-creating stimulus (that didn't involve more tax cuts for the rich), opposing and delaying the extension of unemployment benefits to those out of work (and painting the unemployed as lazy), opposing state aid that would preserve the jobs of teachers, police officers and firefighters (even though it would decrease the deficit), opposing health care reform (except to protect private insurance companies), and even opposing aid to workers sickened by the toxic fumes at Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks.

The smoking gun of GOP dedication to the wealthy at the expense of the middle class (and the revelation that the party's supposed fanatical opposition to deficits is a facade) came when one Republican after another lined up to back Sen. John Kyl's position that it was okay to add to the deficit for tax cuts for high earners (something even conservative stalwart Alan Greenspan could not support).

The GOP record of the last ten years demonstrates that, in reality, the election in November will pose a choice between Democrats who support a free market capitalist economy, but with protections to prevent against its excesses (thus protecting lower, working and middle class Americans), and Republicans at war with the middle class, advocating policies that further their suffering while benefiting Wall Street, corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

Conservatives are right when they say that there are those in Washington looking to redistribute wealth. It's just that it's their party that is all for the redistributing.

huffington post

And these are the people some want to elect more of? Yikes!!!

[BJean 16]

I don't have all the data to back up my posts but I know that it's happening because I see it each and every day.

I'm just a regular American. A bona fide, red-blooded American voter. And I am not blind to what the hierarchy in the Republican party has done starting with the not-so-covert operations during the Nixon administration up until now. And I hope that most red-blooded Americans have been watching as well.

I too have some conservative views of how things should be run in this country. And I've voted for some Republicans in the past because of that. But I can not fathom voting for anyone Republican these days because those Republicans in politics are trying to continue running this country (and my economics) straight into the ground.

It is good though to read Cleo's links because they come from people who have much more clout than the likes of me. And I may not have a lot of credibility with other LapBand posters, but I know the truth and I am deeply saddened and afraid of what is next for this country if the voters do not stand up to the convoluted thinking and lies that the Republicans represent today.

I believe that is what voters did when they voted for our president. I believe that they realized what happed in the previous two elections. I believe they knew they had been lied to over and over and over again by the Republicans. I believe they understood that Sarah Palin represents what is wrong in American politics and they voted in large numbers against it.

I hope and pray that we are able to turn this country around but we can't do it if we don't rebel and show them that we do not trust them and that we know that they are driven by greed, not the democracy and patriotism that they say they believe in.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

I don't have all the data to back up my posts but I know that it's happening because I see it each and every day.

I'm just a regular American. A bona fide, red-blooded American voter. And I am not blind to what the hierarchy in the Republican party has done starting with the not-so-covert operations during the Nixon administration up until now. And I hope that most red-blooded Americans have been watching as well.

I too have some conservative views of how things should be run in this country. And I've voted for some Republicans in the past because of that. But I can not fathom voting for anyone Republican these days because those Republicans in politics are trying to continue running this country (and my economics) straight into the ground.

It is good though to read Cleo's links because they come from people who have much more clout than the likes of me. And I may not have a lot of credibility with other LAP-BAND® posters, but I know the truth and I am deeply saddened and afraid of what is next for this country if the voters do not stand up to the convoluted thinking and lies that the Republicans represent today.

I believe that is what voters did when they voted for our president. I believe that they realized what happed in the previous two elections. I believe they knew they had been lied to over and over and over again by the Republicans. I believe they understood that Sarah Palin represents what is wrong in American politics and they voted in large numbers against it.

I hope and pray that we are able to turn this country around but we can't do it if we don't rebel and show them that we do not trust them and that we know that they are driven by greed, not the democracy and patriotism that they say they believe in.

Well, said, BJean. And don't sell yourself short. You contribute a lot to this debate.

We will not be able to turn this country around if the republicans gain control. We know how this story ends. We lived with it under bush. And continue to do so. It doesn't have a happy ending. We are living with the not-happily-ever after effects of their disasterous policies.

With a legacy of failed policies you would think that there would be a modicum of mea culpa from the republicans but instead you see alarming hypocrisy and arrogance. And on top of it all, they are offering the same disasterous policies again.

We have seen them stand in the way of moving this country forward. They have stood with wall street, big insurance, big oil and the wealthy and against the people of america. They have voted against unemployment extensions, small business bills and everything else.

And yet, there are those, who haven't been paying attention, who think they have the answers.

Just look at history. The republicans have never done one thing for the middle class. Everything the middle class enjoys came from democrats: social security, medicare, medicaid, minimum wage, unemployment, workplace safety, healthcare, financial regulation, civil rights, women's rights, disability rights...and the list goes on.

Unless you are a CEO, to vote republican is against your own economic self interest.

[BJean 16]

Thanks, Cleo's. I feel woefully ignorant and inadequate next to you. But of course that doesn't slow me down.

Everything you posted above is true. Unfortunately the Republicans are masters at instilling fear in people who are uninformed about how they operate. Fortunately the internet and some of the national media sources are helping to balance the scale a bit. But it is truly frightening to see large populations of different states be sucked in because they don't want "socialism" or gun control or new taxes or a foreigner for president. We have to keep the faith that Americans are basically just like us. People who believe in America and good Americans. If we don't stick together, divided we fall.

And as we've both noticed, they are doing their darned level best to divide us.

[pattygreen 5]

It never ceases to amaze me the lengths you will go to to defend indefensible positions of the right. He said "he hopes people have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby..". That is NOT just an ineloquent way of stating a position, that is saying he hopes people get AIDS. That babies get AIDS. Period. And AIDS can kill. Now, you call it what you want but I will call it for what it is:

HATEFUL, VICIOUS, MEAN-SPIRITED and ANTI-LIFE. And if you want to continue to quote the bible, blah, blah, blah to defend this, then do so. I tell it like it is.

And, btw, not a single other person voted against this bill, including his fellow republicans who cut a wide berth around him after his statement. But you, pattygreen, you stand with him. Also very telling.

I don't hope that people get aids. I hope people will learn from their sins and correct bad behavior from the consequences that they endure because of it.

[pattygreen 5]

Companies have to make those signs and someone has to erect them - both providing jobs. So, yes, that's a good thing. Plus I want people to know how the stimulus has improved things. And it has.

And I certainly support this use of my taxpayer dollars as opposed to corporate welfare.

NOONE needed to make those signs and noone needed to put them up. They were totally unnecessary and a waste of money!!! This article will explain to you why there are no jobs out there.

By MICHAEL P. FLEISCHER

With unemployment just under 10% and companies sitting on their cash, you would think that sooner or later job growth would take off. I think it's going to be later—much later. Here's why.

Meet Sally (not her real name; details changed to preserve privacy). Sally is a terrific employee, and she happens to be the median person in terms of base pay among the 83 people at my little company in New Jersey, where we provide audio systems for use in educational, commercial and industrial settings. She's been with us for over 15 years. She's a high school graduate with some specialized training. She makes $59,000 a year—on paper. In reality, she makes only $44,000 a year because $15,000 is taken from her thanks to various deductions and taxes, all of which form the steep, sad slope between gross and net pay.

Daniel Henninger discusses how Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan agree that Americans should send more of their paychecks to Washington. Also, Fannie and Freddie ask for more cash within weeks of an Obama pledge to end taxpayer rescues.

Before that money hits her bank, it is reduced by the $2,376 she pays as her share of the medical and dental insurance that my company provides. And then the government takes its due. She pays $126 for state unemployment insurance, $149 for disability insurance and $856 for Medicare. That's the small stuff. New Jersey takes $1,893 in income taxes. The federal government gets $3,661 for Social Security and another $6,250 for income tax withholding. The roughly $13,000 taken from her by various government entities means that some 22% of her gross pay goes to Washington or Trenton. She's lucky she doesn't live in New York City, where the toll would be even higher.

Employing Sally costs plenty too. My company has to write checks for $74,000 so Sally can receive her nominal $59,000 in base pay. Health insurance is a big, added cost: While Sally pays nearly $2,400 for coverage, my company pays the rest—$9,561 for employee/spouse medical and dental. We also provide company-paid life and other insurance premiums amounting to $153. Altogether, company-paid benefits add $9,714 to the cost of employing Sally.

Then the federal and state governments want a little something extra. They take $56 for federal unemployment coverage, $149 for disability insurance, $300 for workers' comp and $505 for state unemployment insurance. Finally, the feds make me pay $856 for Sally's Medicare and $3,661 for her Social Security.

When you add it all up, it costs $74,000 to put $44,000 in Sally's pocket and to give her $12,000 in benefits. Bottom line: Governments impose a 33% surtax on Sally's job each year.

Because my company has been conscripted by the government and forced to serve as a tax collector, we have lost control of a big chunk of our cost structure. Tax increases, whether cloaked as changes in unemployment or disability insurance, Medicare increases or in any other form can dramatically alter our financial situation. With government spending and deficits growing as fast as they have been, you know that more tax increases are coming—for my company, and even for Sally too.

Companies have also been pressed into serving as providers of health insurance. In a saner world, health insurance would be something that individuals buy for themselves and their families, just as they do with auto insurance. Now, adding to the insanity, there is ObamaCare.

Every year, we negotiate a renewal to our health coverage. This year, our provider demanded a 28% increase in premiums—for a lesser plan. This is in part a tax increase that the federal government has co-opted insurance providers to collect. We had never faced an increase anywhere near this large; in each of the last two years, the increase was under 10%.

To offset tax increases and steepening rises in health-insurance premiums, my company needs sustainably higher profits and sales—something unlikely in this "summer of recovery." We can't pass the additional costs onto our customers, because the market is too tight and we'd lose sales. Only governments can raise prices repeatedly and pretend there will be no consequences.

And even if the economic outlook were more encouraging, increasing revenues is always uncertain and expensive. As much as I might want to hire new salespeople, engineers and marketing staff in an effort to grow, I would be increasing my company's vulnerability to government decisions to raise taxes, to policies that make health insurance more expensive, and to the difficulties of this economic environment.

A life in business is filled with uncertainties, but I can be quite sure that every time I hire someone my obligations to the government go up. From where I sit, the government's message is unmistakable: Creating a new job carries a punishing price.

Mr. Fleischer is president of Bogen Communications Inc. in Ramsey, N.J.

</DIV>

• 
  

[Cleo's Mom 257]

I don't hope that people get aids. I hope people will learn from their sins and correct bad behavior from the consequences that they endure because of it.

learn from their sins

correct bad behavior

consequences to endure

This is why I will fight from having one brand of religion and one biblical interpretation from being the basis for our government policies. Our government isn't in the business of punishing people (non-criminals) for circumstances that they find themselves in. I want my government, we the people, to help people. Not withhold aid as a form of "teach them a lesson". :thumbup:

[pattygreen 5]

That's the whole basis for everything you believe: punishment.

Suffering the consequences for our own actions is how we grow. I suppose you never let your children suffer the consequences for their actions. You probably fixed all their mistakes and covered for their every wrong doing. In so doing you failed as a parent.

I believe in allowing people to fail and learn from it. I believe in allowing consequences (both good and bad) to occur for the growth of individuals. I believe that manknd needs to be held accountable for their actions and choices in life. I do not take joy in witnessing the destruction of people due to their choices. It is very sad, actually, but it must happen for them to change and grow. To not allow it to happen is a disservice to an individual. Oh, don't get me wrong, I also believe in forgiveness and mercy and grace, but just because there is forgiveness, doesn't mean there is no consequence. I will help anyone who is sorry for what they've done and truly wants to change. I will offer a hand up to anybody. Even so, when you do wrong, you must endure the consequences for what you've done and learn from it.

-Punish women for having sex by forcing births (No. allow unborn human beings to live because they have a right to)

-Punish the unemployed for being lazy by denying benefits (No. deny benefits after a time of grace so that individuals will get up and get a job. My own brother has been collecting benefits and says "why should I work when I can stay home and get the funds directly deposited for doing nothing?" He wont even look for work until the benefits are near ready to dry up.)

-Punish the single mom for having the baby by cutting aid (No. Motivate the single mom to work for her food. Nothing in life is free.)

-Punish the medicaid nursing home recipient because his/her family couldn't supply 24/7 skilled nursing care. (No. insist that families care for thier own aging parents and use nursing home care as a last resort unless you can pay for it yourself.)

And on top of it, you believe that everything the government provides for people is the result of their bad behavior. (No. Everything that the government provides for people comes from the governments willingness to give a handout to them so that they will desire dependence upon them.)

I guess getting old and receiving SS and medicare is the "bad behavior" of not dying young.

(No. people who recive SS and medicare are entitled to it because they paid into the program all their lives and expect a return on their investment)

I guess unemployment benefits is the result of the bad behavior of getting laid off.

No. That's the results from a president who makes horrible policies and encourages a socialized nation.

We've got to nip all this bad behavior in the bud. :thumbup: Because these are the big government entitlement programs. Everything else pales in comparison. True.

But the minute some problem or disaster happens, even a man-made one, like the BP oil spill, or the wall street crash, those on the right yap "what is the government going to do about it?"

That's because those are the exact things that the government is supposed to be there for. Disasters and defense and protection for its citizens. P.S. (They should have let wall street crash.)

But try to regulate a company like BP to prevent or address future catastrophies and the right again yaps "that's big government, it stifles job growth, blah, blah, blah". What total hypocrites.

....................................