That, sir, is worth a beer.

Libs will still say you're greedy, though...

Of course, and they are just as greedy as everyone else. But they are not willing to work to satisfy that greed. Instead they take from others. Democrat politicians are just as rich as republicans. They by no means live a modest life. Hollywood is extremely liberal and some of the richest peope in the country.

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http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

Riight... Maybe you should ask a bum whether he would like to go somewhere else, and see what he says.
Work will set you free, but there is no work for guys with no education because their parents couldnt afford it. Nor htere is work for people who cant afford to be healthy. So, maybe there isnt much freedom is the govt doesn't give a damn about people who didn't start with much in the first place.
I wrote about Australia because I've been there, but I'm sure there are many many more countries that provide GOOD EDUCATION and GOOD HEALTH SYSTEMS to all their people. If you want ot be exclusive, go to a super-good/super-expensive school/hospital, and get whatever you want, but money shouldnt be a condition for health.

Yes it should. People should not be having children they cant afford to educate and keep healthy. And we spend billions on charity every year. Education is free, shelter is free, food is free, and yes, healthcare is free. It simply not run on a national govt basis. WHich means those who still have none of those do so by choice.

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http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

Those 4 issues in the original post have divided America for decades. Both political parties hold their deeply held beliefs about the best thing to do about it. They both think they have good intentions, it's just how you apply your politics to solve them.

My complaint with Democrats, or at least the more traditional one's, is that they were for policies like Welfare. Shared responsibility and shared benefits isn't a bad philosophy, but I prefer Clinton's view of things when he began to turn it into Workfare.

The Republican side is all about the freedom of the individual, responsibility and self-reliance. They believe people and communities and church groups ought to help each other out, not higher taxes and a centralized system of distribution of wealth.

My problem with the recent conservative movement in the US is that they use faith and "Moral Values" as wedge issues to divide people. On one hand they support responsibility and the social conservatives back initiatives that encourage sexual activity to be as dangerous to the individual as possible. What the social conservatives are hypocritical about is that they just think that if they say "abstinence" that people will just stop having sex or something, while the church says to be fruitful and multiply. But then people have all these kids they can't afford, and others don't help them out.

Two parties; two irrational solutions. I think if you really believe in the scripture and that you are your brother's and sister's keeper, than our society has an obligation to help prop up the neediest among us all. And it only makes sense because a society is only as strong as it's weakest link.

You don't have to give people easy handouts, but you can help to build a system, a "ladder" of success that rewards hard work and at least lets you keep your healthcare even if your stupid employer whose filthy rich does something as unpatriotic of moving the jobs to a foreign market that employs slaves pretty much. If you think any American deserves to lose their healthcare because of that, than you're not patriotic.

I think healthcare is the most important thing on the list. Over the last 8 years of stagnation in America where more and more people have found that their companies have moved out of the US, all the jobs that are left are lesser paying with lesser benefits.

The big scam of the last 8 years is the cynical ploy by the White House to send all those reservists into war since when they come back, they don't get all of their healthcare covered for them because they're only reservists. That's unpatriotic, and it's really evil, too.

Name a single function where the government has outperformed the marketplace. Excepting, of course, national defense, law enforcement, and road systems.

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What would be better is all four of those things being distributed amongst the people in the only rational way yet discovered, on the marketplace, with businesses competing for customers, rather than government agencies and bureaucrats exercising totalitarian control over the nation's wealth.

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By who? Certainly not by the authors and principle framers of the Constitution:

"With respect to the words "general welfare," I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."
-James Madison

“…[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”
-James Madison

“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
-Benjamin Franklin

“Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.”
-Thomas Jefferson

“A wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”
-Thomas Jefferson

The Founding Fathers on Charity, Wealth Redistribution, and Federal Government

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Freedom doesnt mean you pay no taxes. You pay them anyway, so why instead of investing in a war, doesn't the government invest in health and education (by education I also mean university like the rest of the developed world).

Instead of investing in needless wars, health-care, and education, things that only benefit particular groups of Americans, if any, I believe the Federal Government ought to invest only in the physical defense and security of the nation, plus infrastructure, both of which benefit all Americans. Taxation is a necessary evil in a stable society, but, as Calvin Coolidge said, "collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery."

Besides, as I've shown, the Constitution was never intended to give the power of charity to any branch of the Federal Government.

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What good is health and education if you get blown up? National defense is the primary duty of the federal govt. Health and education is the responsibility of the individual. Even then, the country spends more each year on education and health than most countries entire wealth, several times more than we spend on national defense. Almost our entire federal budget is spent on healthcare, retirement, education, science, etc. Then we spend billions more at the state and local levels, not to mention our personal fortunes investment in health and education.

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http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

1st, Check your numbers better. Of course US spends way more money in welfare than many country's entire wealth, say Nigeria. But that is not the point anyway. The point is that people in what is supposed to be an example for the rest of the world according to nationalist media, politicians, hollywood, etc leaves people dying in the streets. And the worst part is that the govt doesnt provide higher education to all their citizens so maybe that bum could make himself useful. There is absolute no denial in that someone born in the high or middle classes has way more chances to end up leading a professional job than anyone in the lower classes. So it is hypocritical saying that a person with a marginal background who never got out of the hole should pay for his health same as someone who started in a much better condition. If you think everything, including misfortunes, should be hereditary, this would be like in the middle ages: born shit, dye shit.

No.

YOU (and I and everyone else) are your brother's keeper. Not the government. I'd just like the government to allow me to do this by not seizing my money and squandering it.

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Hope is the opposite of audacity. It's passive, an excuse for inaction.

Socialism doesn't create a rising tide that lifts all boats. It drains the lake and teaches the boat riders not to help themselves by rowing.

But not nearly so many as in other parts of the world, and here, it is most often by choice.

The government provides basic education. Those who choose not to master that would not be able to make much use of higher education anyway. So you're saying the worst part is that our government doesn't waste even more money than it already does, and towards an unachievable end?

It's not hypocritical in the least, except from one who would expect not to pay for the poor's healthcare but then expect the poor to pay for his/her (insert luxury good here).

But what color would one dye the shit? Misfortunes are not strictly hereditary, but often seem that way. The less fortunate are (in the US anyway) usually that way by choice, and they then extend that to making poor choices for their children. All it takes is for one generation to decide to take full advantage of the opportunities available, and to instill that ethic in the next, and the cycle of poverty is ended. They may not end up parking luxury cars in their own 3+ car garages, but they won't have to wonder where their next meal is coming from.

Rather than trot out the tired old cliches, how about we look at some real life examples from my life? I know a woman who isn't too well off, and used to be outright poor. She partied too much and dropped out of college, partied more and got into the drug scene, made an active decision to have children with an abusive loser, and chose to stay with (and/or keep going back to) him despite pleas from various friends. She somewhat recovered from all these bad choices by finally choosing to take some classes, cut Mr loser out of her life, and meeting a gainfully employed guy. Another woman has 3 or 4 kids by at least 2 fathers, none of whom help finanically or otherwise, and is hoping to have another child by another guy who can't seem to hold a job and lives with his mother. Not sure of her educational background. I also know a guy (a minority) who got a peon-level job at a good company and worked his way up, plus has invested in a couple rental properties, plus helps his kids get and do odd jobs like lawn mowing. I don't think he has a college degree, but he has worked hard and has insisted his children apply themselves in school. He's not rich, but probably would be if he had stopped at 2 kids, and his kids will probably not be poor either. All of my experiences with the poor or past poor indicate that poverty, or lack thereof, is a choice. Not necessarily a conscious choice, or an easy one as far as getting Out of poverty, but a choice nonetheless.

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Today's forecast: Government corruption.

Tomorrow's forecast: 100% chance of more 'politics as usual'

Maybe it's finally time to vote Libertarian

Know what.. The UK had this same debate about 100 years ago when a group of people started studing the lower class of their country. What these people came up with is that despite the ideology ar the time, most (over 75%) poverty wasn´t by chioce (by this I mean drinking, gambling or just lazyness). They also noticed that Germany, which was growing at gigantic steps, had indeed a general welfare program. The ideology behind this "niceness" is that worker effectiveness is much higher under good health conditions, hence more productivity, people in the streets can make theirselves useful and so its better for everyone. If you are thinking of discrediting my argument by mentioning the Kaizer and WWI or Hitler WWII and so on, I suggest you don´t beacuse it wasn´t welfare that triggered the first war, but rather an arms-race, and the power to the nazis came from disconfort in a majority of the people giving them no other better thing but radical change.
Another reason why the Uk started a welfare state at that the beginings of this century was the threat from the exteme left, that is to say that ugly evil red word: communism. Sure, the math isn´t very hard, add disconfort with radical ideas you get revolution. I am not impling that today there might be a communist revolution in the US, but still, drugs, gangs, etc. etc. can become a real problem. So welfare might be a way of tackling these problems.

In reply with the argument that said the businesses are better at doing everything that any govt because of the laws of free market, the fact is that they are focusing on profit rather than service. Its true that in a society with absolute inteligent people better service would be direcly corelated with income, but peole are dumb and hypocritical. Thats why these companies put a lot of money in ads. People don´t follow rational thinking, they go with the most promesing images. Otherwise they wouldnt buy designer clothes or any type of fashion items. I also said hypocritical because they don´t give a rats but about the people in the streets without medical care, just as they don´t care about the indonesian person that made their shoe for nothing so they can spend less. Thats why HMOs get enourmous profit.
This is why we have a govt. Put down justice, welfare (I include freedom in both justice and welfare), protection, and pave the way for progress.

Well, I guess this is enaugh for now.