On this we agree.  But at least acknowledge that there's an equal amount of hypocrisy coming out of the mouth of someone who attempts to argue that Congress has the Constitutional authority to force people to purchase health insurance.

Sorry, I had to pick at this, because for many years, the same people arguing that gay people are a detriment to society were the same people arguing for an insurance mandate. The insurance mandate was a Republican idea first introduced in 1991 by the Heritage Foundation, and was a big part of the Republicans' alternative to Clinton's proposed health care plan in 1994.

It was the core of Mitt Romney's health care reform and he argues it better than I ever could. Here's the video that will ensure Mittens never rises above possible VP:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6DrH6P9OC0

Max wrote:

forsberg_us wrote:

That's a fairly utopian view of things.  On the other hand there's the label on my breakfast cereal that is required because someone decided that the American public needed to be told that eating Cocoa Puffs might be less healthy than Wheaties.  The warning labels in my car that remind me that the air bag might be hazardous to my toddler (a toddler that I don't have).  Then there's the 6.2% that I'm required to pay into Social Security which really goes to pay for others' retirement, but ostensibly is money the government requires me to contribute for my retirement under the notion that it can manage that 6.2% better than I can.  I could go on, but I'm depressing myself.

FWIW, I agree with everyone of those.  Have you ever read the story of the first child who was killed by an air bag?  It's heartbreaking.  If I recall this correctly, it was a 5 mph bumper-to-bumper collision in a supermarket parking lot that did no damage to either car.  The airbags deployed and the driver's daughter (8?, 12?) sitting in the passenger was killed instantly of a broken neck.  The father driving the car couldn't believe that his daughter was non-responsive from such a little tiny accident.  The simple fact was that no one knew or even suspected such a thing could occur.  Using Lincoln's axiom that we will only do collectively those things that we cannot do better individually: do you have a better way to inform and remind 300 million Americans of the dangers of having a child in the passenger seat with an armed air bag than requiring manufacturers to afix a label that costs pennies  onto the dashboard?

Given that a healthy diet is key to a healthy society, should the entire nation become nutritionists and then individually track down the nutrition information for each and every product?  Or doesn't it actually make more sense to hire a surgeon general to inform Americans of nutrition guidelines and then require manufacturers to list the nutritional information in their product and calculate how it fulfills the surgeon general's guidelines?

As for SS, you repeat the big fallacy of our generation.  You are not paying 6.2% for your retirement.  You are paying 6.2% to eradicate poverty among the elderly during your working years.  Hooray!  I am all for that.  Between SS, Medicare, and a few other programs, abject poverty among the elderly (remember the stereotype of elderly people eating Alpo?) had been essentially eradicated in our country by the 1970s.  But since Reagan, the GOP has waged an incessant war against this for some reason, deciding that those tax dollars are not worth providing some measure of a safety net for our elderly.

Since back then it was a non-starter to discuss doing away with SS or Medicare, their unpleasant solution was simply to cut taxes, generate large federal budget deficits and eventually ask Americans to choose between low taxes with a very limited social safety net, or return to the tax levels of the 1940s through 1970s and enjoy a social safety similar to what people in other economically advanced nations get.

So we've made the government responsible for warning people who aren't smart enough to know children belong in the back seat, making sure that people understand that a double whopper with cheese might not be as healthy as a salad and I get to pay 6.2% to cover for people who were bright enough to save for their golden years. What a great country.

Again, why do I have to participate in SS. Let me opt out and fend for myself later in life. If you want to help the elderly, have fun. Personally, I don't care.

I think I'm going to go take a dump. Maybe the government needs to put a warning label on the toilet paper to let me know which side my hand goes on.

Max wrote:

forsberg_us wrote:

"Redistributing wealth from one generation to the next"

Elaborate please.

Inheritance tax.

So Pujols signs his $200M contract, retires and live a happy life, after which he tries to leave his wealth to his chidren and the government swoops in and says sorry, but that money is earmarked for a 3rd generation welfare family. Makes perfect sense.

forsberg_us wrote:

So we've made the government responsible for warning people who aren't smart enough to know children belong in the back seat, making sure that people understand that a double whopper with cheese might not be as healthy as a salad and I get to pay 6.2% to cover for people who were bright enough to save for their golden years. What a great country.

Again, why do I have to participate in SS. Let me opt out and fend for myself later in life. If you want to help the elderly, have fun. Personally, I don't care.

I think I'm going to go take a dump. Maybe the government needs to put a warning label on the toilet paper to let me know which side my hand goes on.

I feel we have a right to be told what we are buying and as far as fending for yourself later, that would never happen.  I am sure you are smart enough to take care of yourself.  However if you were not and SS was not in place the government would end up taking care of you anyway.  I dont think anyone would believe the amount of people who have nothing set back for retirement, soling counting on SS.  I think that is stupid, really stupid.  Still if SS wasnt in place those people still wouldnt be smart enough to put something in place.  In this country we try and fix ever problem and would not let them suffer.  Likely they would go on welfar once they were no longer able to work.  Therefor the working population would still be paying for them and taxes would have to be raised to account for that.  At least with SS you will be able to draw something (at least we all hope so).  If those people were to go on welfar because SS didnt exist it would screw those who did prepare for retirement because they would have to flip the bill for the welfar increase and not get anything in return.

forsberg_us wrote:

Again, why do I have to participate in SS. Let me opt out and fend for myself later in life. If you want to help the elderly, have fun. Personally, I don't care.

For the same reason I can't opt out of funding Bush's wars in Asia, or the CIA torturing people . . .

. . . because those social security, the War in Afghanistan, Medicaid, the CIA's covert torture program, and larger more readable street signs are all governmental policy.

But the wealthy worked to become that way for their family not for my family, your family or any other family.  They earned the money and it was taxed then.  What they do with it is there bussiness.  All the government is doing is taxing the dead.  Why should a family farm have to be sold because of a tax.  Rich families are rich because along the way somebody made them that way.  They shouldnt be punished just to even things out alittle for some white trash junky who family has never held a job.  At some point that family is going to have to take ownership for there short comings and the rich family should keep the riches they earned.  The government will tax the dead because the dead dont vote.  I just hope it doesnt get out of hand and I dont think the government should decide who is too rich.

APRTW wrote:

But the wealthy worked to become that way for their family not for my family, your family or any other family.  They earned the money and it was taxed then.  What they do with it is there bussiness.  All the government is doing is taxing the dead.  Why should a family farm have to be sold because of a tax.  Rich families are rich because along the way somebody made them that way.  They shouldnt be punished just to even things out alittle for some white trash junky who family has never held a job.  At some point that family is going to have to take ownership for there short comings and the rich family should keep the riches they earned.  The government will tax the dead because the dead dont vote.  I just hope it doesnt get out of hand and I dont think the government should decide who is too rich.

Bingo.

forsberg_us wrote:

For the better part of the 20th Century America was a super-power. We were the country everyone wanted to be, despite the fact that for a sizeable majority of our first 200 years of existence we had no social programs. Now suddenly we have social programs coming out of our ass, we headed toward a 14 trillion dollar debt and our standing around the world is disappearing. 

But it's all working, really it is.

the zenith of our power coincided with our highest taxation and greatest level of social services.

"On the other hand there's the label on my breakfast cereal that is required because someone decided that the American public needed to be told that eating Cocoa Puffs might be less healthy than Wheaties."

Good point, but a warning label is not a prohibition. You can still eat your Cocoa Puffs.
I have problems with some of the things goverment does - primarily the way it wastes resources - but I don't see the government as a barrier to success the way Limbaugh and some of the other naysayers do, primarily to cover up their greed. Limbaugh's ilk are the first to complain about a lack of services at the same time they're complaining about paying taxes. The notion government behaves the way it does to keep people relying on government is nonsense. We're human beings, so it's in our nature to be self-sufficient, self-actualized and competitive. Maybe that is utopian, but it's generally the way most of us behave.

Max wrote:

forsberg_us wrote:

For the better part of the 20th Century America was a super-power. We were the country everyone wanted to be, despite the fact that for a sizeable majority of our first 200 years of existence we had no social programs. Now suddenly we have social programs coming out of our ass, we headed toward a 14 trillion dollar debt and our standing around the world is disappearing. 

But it's all working, really it is.

the zenith of our power coincided with our highest taxation and greatest level of social services.

That could easily be restated as "The decline of our power began at the point of our highest taxation and greatest level of social services."  But I'd really like to see the graphs of the differentials; it's possible the rate of increase of our power began to decline as our taxation and social spending were increasing.

"But since Reagan, the GOP has waged an incessant war against this for some reason, deciding that those tax dollars are not worth providing some measure of a safety net for our elderly.

Since back then it was a non-starter to discuss doing away with SS or Medicare, their unpleasant solution was simply to cut taxes, generate large federal budget deficits and eventually ask Americans to choose between low taxes with a very limited social safety net, or return to the tax levels of the 1940s through 1970s and enjoy a social safety similar to what people in other economically advanced nations get."

Your "for some reason" gets to the heart of why we cannot come to an agreement on economic issues.  First of all, you imply malevolent intentions on the part of "the GOP", making it easier to ignore what I'm sure you would deride anyway as "trickle-down economics".  I believe there are fundamental economic principles with which a society trifles at its own peril, and you apparently do not.  Where can we possibly go from here?

JV wrote:

I'd really like to see the graphs of the differentials; it's possible the rate of increase of our power began to decline as our taxation and social spending were increasing.

The highest levels of taxation were in 1945, and there was a slow but steady decline into the 1970's. The top tax bracket was 95% in 1945, 90% during the Eisenhower years, and had dropped to 70% before Reagan.  Reagan cut it in about half, and I think it was 30%-ish.  During the Clinton years it was 35%, but I am not sure how or when it got there.  Bush trimmed it again to whatever it is now, 28%?  (I am guessing).

The height of social services was probably in the 1970's, but people could probably debate that.

The apex of American power was when?

forsberg_us wrote:

For the better part of the 20th Century America was a super-power. We were the country everyone wanted to be, despite the fact that for a sizeable majority of our first 200 years of existence we had no social programs. Now suddenly we have social programs coming out of our ass, we headed toward a 14 trillion dollar debt and our standing around the world is disappearing. 

But it's all working, really it is.

I said this on the old New Message board years ago when debating the war.  Why do we step in and I think most that support the war say we step in because it needs done and we have the ablity to do so.  My question was do really have tha ability.

artie_fufkin wrote:

I wonder what kind of odds I'd get if I bet on that - the President being either Obama or someone else?

About the same as the bet you wanted to make that the Cardinals would win between 45 and 125 games.