On Jan 7, 2005, at 1:11 AM, Trent Shipley wrote:
On Thursday 2005-01-06 23:56, Warren Ockrassa wrote:
Yeah, that's a concern I have with "reform" too. I want my damned money
back. I never wanted it taken from my checks to begin with, but I
didn't have any choice. So if there's going to be a retooling, I fully
expect the Fed to return to me every cent it took from me in the name
of "putting it away" on my behalf.
<rant>
OK one more time. We the people in commonwealth, decided to form a government.
Actually, that's false. "We the people" who formed that government have been in their graves for well over a century, some nearly two. No one alive today formed the fed, and I'm pretty sure that no one alive two centuries ago envisioned the bloated, money-sucking monster currently bleeding the "commonweal" dry.
I don't object to paying taxes into a program that works or that I know will be of more merit than not (money into school breakfast/lunch programs, for instance, is something no one has to justify to me, and I vote *for* every school bond issue on every ballot), but far too much of what gets paid into the US fed is waste or foolish expenditures. Defense money going to programs to fund psychic research? A wastrel legislature that cuts taxes with one hand while pushing through massive "defense" expenditures with the other -- and then has the temerity to suggest that positive social programs are the reasons taxes are still "too high"?
We can't trust these people with our money, that much is clear, and I want mine the hell back.
In the 1930's, amidst great suffering, our ancestors decided to
fund a pay-as-you-go welfare system (not a pension system, but a welfare
system) out of charity toward respect for elders so that they could enjoy a
minimal amount of economic dignity in what was then extreme old age. The
system was called Social Security. (It should have been called
Social-Economic Security, but the name was too long.)
Thanks for the unnecessary history lesson. I'm sure you enjoyed the opportunity to be pedantic.
Some people have always been opposed to the forced transfer of personal funds
to communal funds for the succor of our elders from before the enabling
legislation was passed. The rest of us in the commonwealth did not want our
old folks begging in the streets, its bad for the retail trade at the very
least. So the individuals, via their republic, decided to keep the
welfare-for-old-folks policy and associated tax.
You almost certainly were not alive at the time, so your use of "us" is at best disingenuous here.
Leaving aside the merits of keeping *some* people from poverty in advanced years, is it really valid to imply that your decision to side with the dominant policy elevates your perspective? Or is it more like "Eat more jackrabbit; half a million coyotes can't be wrong"?
I.e., there have been plenty of times in the past when various policies were endorsed by various groups, all of whom used powerful speechifyin' to support their perspectives, asserting they were doing the "morally" right thing, etc. Many of those policies, we see now, were not just inhumane but actually are regarded today as illegal.
I'm not saying I disagree with the intent behind social protection. I believe we need more of it, and that it should work. But your argument isn't an argument. You're going to have to do better than spout language about "old folks begging in the streets" to support your views. Sorry.
As for the distinction between the 'Gummint' and the people, in a functioning
or semi-functioning democratic republic, the distinction is invidious.
Not necessarily. And you might have missed it, but the distinction in *this* society is not just present but very, very clear. My guess would be that you haven't had a run-in with the "gummint" (not a term I've used) or you'd know, beyond any possible doubt, that it does not work for you, nor for me. It works solely for itself.
Ultimately We the People *ARE* the republic, are the government.
In the Jeffersonian ideal, sure, but you're living in Fantasyland™ if you really think that's the case today.
We gave our government the power
to tax on the theory that if you are benefiting from the commonwealth, then
you OWE something to the commonwealth.
False. Our forebears (not "we") gave the fed the power to tax in order to finance World War I. And actually not even all of our forebears, but only *some* of them.
Woodrow Wilson -- who was downright Ashcroftian in many of his policies -- favored a Draconian control over free speech and a government that did in fact turn on the very people it was meant to represent. We have his administration to thank for the IRS and the current overreach of power the fed has to extort capital and real assets from the very people whom you claim it represents.
Is life in America Hobbsian? Is the
general political-economic expectation for a life that is poor, solitary,
nasty, brutish, and short? It most certainly is not! American life is
Lockean, the contract works. Ante up. Take pride you live in a free
republic that can afford substantial collective expenditures for the
commonweal.
Jesus, you need an editor, and badly.
And while you're at it, quit talking about the "damn government" as if it were
some occupying force.
No. I will talk about the damn government any goddamned way I like.
There are times when it does behave as an occupying force in its own borders (Waco, anyone?) and there are times when it turns on its own citizens (WWII Japanese internment camps, the more recent putsch against Arab Americans, Guantanamo). Only a self-blinded jackass would ignore those realities, or even minimize them.
I'm not saying, nor have I ever said, that the fed is inherently evil. But blathering on and on about how ideal this society is seems -- to me -- every bit as dangerous as blathering on and on about how America is always in the right, justified in anything it does, "my country right or wrong", etc.
It's OUR Republic, and OUR government, and I am responsible for it.
Then you are responsible for its misdeeds as well? Such as, I don't know, bombing the living hell out of a country, killing thousands of innocent civilians, on totally false pretenses?
Or, more parochially, banning marriage contracts amid same-gender couples? That's not the action of MY government -- it is the action of a bullying machine out to marginalize me and those like me.
Kindly don't jabber on about your wonderfully inclusive utopian society when it's so abundantly and obviously broken, and when victims of that very brokenness are in your midst, and particularly when you are addressing one of those very targets *of* that broken government. My situation pretty well negates the bulk of your monologue. I am what you call a reality check.
So let's be clear, it's not my money, its not your money, it is OUR money, and
that is because WE decided to spend it corporately in OUR common interest.
Let's see ... wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong.
1. It is your money. (I assume you earned it productively.)
2. It is my money. (I earned it, the fed did not.)
3. It is not our money. (You didn't earn my money for me. You are not entitled to any money from me gratis. I do not expect you to give me any of your money.)
4. WE did not decide (see above) to form this fed, and WE did not decide (see above) to form SS, and WE did not decide (see above) to start an income tax (example) because of a sense of altruism.
5. Spending MY money on (example) a war I never supported against a nation that did not attack us is not in our common interest. Spending MY money to persecute MY peers is not in our common interest. Spending MY money to develop a star-chamber prison camp that holds my fellow Americans -- as well as citizens of other sovereign nations -- is not in our common interest.
If OUR government spends OUR money excessively or unwisely, then it is OUR
fault.
Oh? And what are WE to do about it? You're full of bombast; are you equally full of practical answers?
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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