It appears the system is working

[Jimmy Higgins]

Isn't that pretty much saying that yes, Trump asked them to throw cold water on the Russian story, but they dismissed it as the ravings of a dumb ass? I think so.

Comey claims he did want "the cloud" to go away.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/07/politics/james-comey-memos-testimony/

And apparently they had "that thing" together. I'm assuming Trump meant the dinner, but the creative side of my mind wants to imagine more, eccentric possibilities.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In other words, welfare programs for the middle class.

Two words come to mind, you and fuck. Do you have any idea how much it costs to go to a local public 4 yr college? My professor paid for an engineering degree by working over the summer.

And jebus, you have no kids, so shut up about day care support. I had no idea how poor I was until I found out how much day care costs. For a family with two children, it can be a few expensive car payments per month!

All you have here is a personal attack, no rebuttal of the fact that you're asking for welfare for the middle class.

There are things which the government needs to be involved but your list of stuff involves legitimately expensive things for which the only way to make them cheap is to subsidize them--with taxpayer money.

While I do not like the way our welfare system works I am not opposed to welfare per se--but only for the poor.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Two words come to mind, you and fuck. Do you have any idea how much it costs to go to a local public 4 yr college? My professor paid for an engineering degree by working over the summer.

And jebus, you have no kids, so shut up about day care support. I had no idea how poor I was until I found out how much day care costs. For a family with two children, it can be a few expensive car payments per month!

Some people, such as myself, deny childrearing as a guaranteed right. I agree with what you listed, except daycare. I begrudgingly pay a HUGE amount of money to support my local public schools through my property taxes. I oppose supporting your children for you beyond that. If you cannot afford 2, you should only have had 1... or none.

Exactly. Children are a choice, you have them, you pay for them. I don't exactly like paying for the schools, either, but as society stands I think it's necessary.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Two words come to mind, you and fuck. Do you have any idea how much it costs to go to a local public 4 yr college? My professor paid for an engineering degree by working over the summer.

And jebus, you have no kids, so shut up about day care support. I had no idea how poor I was until I found out how much day care costs. For a family with two children, it can be a few expensive car payments per month!

All you have here is a personal attack, no rebuttal of the fact that you're asking for welfare for the middle class.

The attack is you suggesting that it is "welfare". It gets real tiring with how you judge everything based on the "LP Anecdotal Scale". Hmm... doesn't affect me... therefore must be "welfare".

There are things which the government needs to be involved but your list of stuff involves legitimately expensive things for which the only way to make them cheap is to subsidize them--with taxpayer money.

While I do not like the way our welfare system works I am not opposed to welfare per se--but only for the poor.

Yeah, there is nothing like saying, "Yeah, my wife wants to work, but we can't afford it because of daycare costs." Like I said, do you have any idea how much daycare costs? For my brother-in-law and his three kids, the monthly cost competes with what I take home in a month, and I'm not remotely poor.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Some people, such as myself, deny childrearing as a guaranteed right. I agree with what you listed, except daycare. I begrudgingly pay a HUGE amount of money to support my local public schools through my property taxes. I oppose supporting your children for you beyond that. If you cannot afford 2, you should only have had 1... or none.

You don't seem to get it. In order to afford daycare for two kids, the parents must have high paying jobs. In many cases it is better to only have one parent with a job to save in the daycare costs. How the fuck is that right?

So why are you a stay at home mom?

Oh, we can't afford for me to have a job.

If you're not in a skilled position it's likely that taking care of your kids is the most valuable use of your time.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Some people, such as myself, deny childrearing as a guaranteed right. I agree with what you listed, except daycare. I begrudgingly pay a HUGE amount of money to support my local public schools through my property taxes. I oppose supporting your children for you beyond that. If you cannot afford 2, you should only have had 1... or none.

Exactly. Children are a choice, you have them, you pay for them.

And when I start holding my hand out to you for money to buy clothes, toys, food, then you can talk. No one is asking you to help pay for someone else's kids. We are talking about creating an infrastructure that allows people to work. TO FUCKING WORK!!! So they can pay for their fucking kids!

College... it costs too damn much. Unless a person has a trade, they need to go to college to be able to afford to pay for their kids. If both parents want to work (to pay for their kids), they need to send their kids to daycare... the price is too high. I couldn't remotely afford to pay daycare for one kid without removing deductions for savings and getting rid of most luxuries, like Netflix. I mean did you bump your head or something? This shit is pretty easy to understand. If you have to spend a couple thousand dollars a month on daycare, that means, the second bread earner needs to be working 40 hours a week, making around $20 an hour, or the first bread earner needs to be doctor or lawyer. And that is to just break even with daycare.

I don't exactly like paying for the schools, either...

Poor baby.

...but as society stands I think it's necessary.

How fucking gracious of you. They should erect statues!

- - - Updated - - -

You don't seem to get it. In order to afford daycare for two kids, the parents must have high paying jobs. In many cases it is better to only have one parent with a job to save in the daycare costs. How the fuck is that right?

So why are you a stay at home mom?

Oh, we can't afford for me to have a job.

If you're not in a skilled position it's likely that taking care of your kids is the most valuable use of your time.

Yeah, that valuable use of time... doesn't generate much in the way of currency to pay for the kids, does it?

 

[braces_for_impact]

I'll jump in on the "welfare derail" too for just a moment.

At the core of the "just don't have kids argument" is a premise. Just don't have kids you cannot afford. Unfortunately, anything involving human behavior is going to be complex and messy. This includes having children you cannot afford. There are a variety of reasons of why someone may fail to live up to their responsibilities, but it happens. Maybe the real root question is this. Do people that make mistakes deserve help recovering from them? Or, do we reserve our limited resources for those that are judged to be in circumstances completely beyond their control? Is there such a thing? Is there a compelling interest in helping people recover from their mistakes? Would a rising tide lift all boats in this case? Also, considering that mistakes are made in business on a near constant basis, and yet corporate welfare exists, should that affect our decision to grant people some latitude?

Having children one can't afford is a real bedrock objection to welfare used by the Republicans (and Loren) when pointing to why people don't deserve help. I think standing there, railing against how things "should be" is the equivalent of deriving an is from an ought. There is a certain amount of human behavior that is always going to take place, and has to be accounted for in any welfare system. In our healthcare system for example, we still provide health benefits and corrective treatment to those that did not take proper care of themselves. We urge people to take better care of themselves, and provide education and techniques to help with that, but we don't deny treatment to people that didn't learn their lesson. To do otherwise is to simply rail against the problem, while simultaneously ignoring it. Ignoring this problem because people get what they deserve unfortunately drags everyone else down, and bluntly, costs everyone more in a variety of other costs that are associated with raising many children up in our society in poverty.

Speaking on a personal level, child care is our single greatest barrier to getting out of poverty. It's costs are the likes of our other single greatest expense - rent. In some ways my girlfriend and I are lucky, we have an old somewhat reliable beater to get around, and I also use public transportation. Our largest barrier to complete self sufficiency is both of us being able to work full time at the same time. Public transportation is slow. Until I got laid off in my last job, my 8 1/2 hour shift meant I was gone on the bus for a minimum of 13 hours a day. My other large barrier to getting back into the job market right now is locating employment near public transportation. I'm in school and trying to transition to a new type of employment, but even if I score a great job, my girlfriend has quit or reduce hours at her other two jobs. We don't have friends or family to watch our kids, so we're on our own. Many people are in similar circumstances.

I think shouting "Stop fucking!" from the top of your lungs doesn't really get us anywhere.

 

[Copernicus]

bilby I read that the reason for electoral college was that Southern states were populated mostly by slaves so slave owners would have no weight in direct elections, so they come up with idea where they normalize on number of people in the state giving blacks 2/3 or something like that of a white man.

What? The 2/3's compromise was the basis for determining the number of representatives each state would have available in the House of Representatives. The southern states wanted to count the slaves as people in order to inflate their representative power in the House.

The Electoral College was created as a method to prevent people like Donald Trump being elected President. The Founding Fathers only gave direct electoral powers to the citizens for members of the House of Representatives. Senators were appointed by the state, judges by President and approved by Congress, and the President generally by the Electoral College, typically via a popular vote, but not necessarily.

Sorry. I realize that this is a bit off-topic and the thread has moved on, but I just want to inject a point of historical accuracy here. We are really talking about the " Three-fifths compromise". Not 2/3. And you are just reflecting Hamilton's speculation that the electoral college would somehow override a popular choice to elect a clearly unqualified candidate to the presidency. In fact, the idea gained traction with southern slave states and some states with smaller populations precisely because they saw it as a way to prevent a national majority from overriding their parochial interests. James Madison himself, a southern slave owner, cited that as the primary issue for supporting the electoral college system:

"There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to the fewest objections."

 

[Malintent]

Some people, such as myself, deny childrearing as a guaranteed right. I agree with what you listed, except daycare. I begrudgingly pay a HUGE amount of money to support my local public schools through my property taxes. I oppose supporting your children for you beyond that. If you cannot afford 2, you should only have had 1... or none.

You're not supporting his children.

You're supporting a decent society and addressing the biggest needs, not every need.

you are using highly subjective terminology. Give me 1 million dollars. No? You're not supporting my needs!!!

I demand a wife that stays at home to take care of my 12 children.
I demand minimum wage sufficiently support all of their needs (iPhones with unlimited data, of course)

How can you deny my minimum existence!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Exactly. Children are a choice, you have them, you pay for them.

And when I start holding my hand out to you for money to buy clothes, toys, food, then you can talk. No one is asking you to help pay for someone else's kids. We are talking about creating an infrastructure that allows people to work. TO FUCKING WORK!!! So they can pay for their fucking kids!

You're holding your hand out for the child care.

 

[untermensche]

You're not supporting his children.

You're supporting a decent society and addressing the biggest needs, not every need.

you are using highly subjective terminology. Give me 1 million dollars. No? You're not supporting my needs!!!

I demand a wife that stays at home to take care of my 12 children.
I demand minimum wage sufficiently support all of their needs (iPhones with unlimited data, of course)

How can you deny my minimum existence!

I'm using the only understanding possible.

Paying for all the things that make for a decent society is what taxes should be used for.

But paying your taxes in not giving any specific person something.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

And when I start holding my hand out to you for money to buy clothes, toys, food, then you can talk. No one is asking you to help pay for someone else's kids. We are talking about creating an infrastructure that allows people to work. TO FUCKING WORK!!! So they can pay for their fucking kids!

You're holding your hand out for the child care.

So that both parents can work.

 

[Malintent]

you are using highly subjective terminology. Give me 1 million dollars. No? You're not supporting my needs!!!

I demand a wife that stays at home to take care of my 12 children.
I demand minimum wage sufficiently support all of their needs (iPhones with unlimited data, of course)

How can you deny my minimum existence!

I'm using the only understanding possible.

Paying for all the things that make for a decent society is what taxes should be used for.

But paying your taxes in not giving any specific person something.

Yes, but the issue is that "decent society" is subjective. Some people may think a decent living (providing for a decent society) is that which is sufficient to not starve to death. yet others believe that daycare, iphones, internet access, higher education, and the ability to invest for future development is necessary for a "decent society".

My question to you is, "how many children of yours do you expect your community to aid?" Is a person entitled to 10x the entitlements as another, because they decide to have 10 children, versus none?

 

[Malintent]

You're holding your hand out for the child care.

So that both parents can work.

Are you saying that is a right, as in an entitlement?
I want 10 children and a wife that stays at home not working in a career. I also do not want any education, so I demand that minimum wage support this choice.

Have I the right?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You're holding your hand out for the child care.

So that both parents can work.

A reason for holding the hand out doesn't mean it's not out.

 

[LordKiran]

You don't seem to get it. In order to afford daycare for two kids, the parents must have high paying jobs. In many cases it is better to only have one parent with a job to save in the daycare costs. How the fuck is that right?

So why are you a stay at home mom?

Oh, we can't afford for me to have a job.

If you're not in a skilled position it's likely that taking care of your kids is the most valuable use of your time.

How do you know what daycare costs the average American? I suspect you've put zero thought into this assertion. Further, the reason you accrue insults is because you aggravate people with your insulting ignorance.

 

[untermensche]

I'm using the only understanding possible.

Paying for all the things that make for a decent society is what taxes should be used for.

But paying your taxes in not giving any specific person something.

Yes, but the issue is that "decent society" is subjective. Some people may think a decent living (providing for a decent society) is that which is sufficient to not starve to death. yet others believe that daycare, iphones, internet access, higher education, and the ability to invest for future development is necessary for a "decent society".

My question to you is, "how many children of yours do you expect your community to aid?" Is a person entitled to 10x the entitlements as another, because they decide to have 10 children, versus none?

How many of those children will society educate?

GW Bush got to pretend he was a "war president" and wasted trillions.

Did we send him the bill?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If you're not in a skilled position it's likely that taking care of your kids is the most valuable use of your time.

How do you know what daycare costs the average American? I suspect you've put zero thought into this assertion. Further, the reason you accrue insults is because you aggravate people with your insulting ignorance.

Just look at this thread--non-skilled women can't afford to work because of the cost of the child care. If working produces less income than the cost of the childcare to let you work isn't it obvious that taking care of the children is the best use of their time?

 

[LordKiran]

How do you know what daycare costs the average American? I suspect you've put zero thought into this assertion. Further, the reason you accrue insults is because you aggravate people with your insulting ignorance.

Just look at this thread--non-skilled women can't afford to work because of the cost of the child care. If working produces less income than the cost of the childcare to let you work isn't it obvious that taking care of the children is the best use of their time?

Most would consider that a loss of productivity given how a few people can watch over many children at a time. At the same time, the child also loses out on valuable experiences with other children and the opportunity to develop their social skills.

Generally I would argue that instead of subsidized childcare, price controls might be better in this particular case. barring that? Perhaps a sort of public preschool program.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So that both parents can work.

A reason for holding the hand out doesn't mean it's not out.

So why don't both of you work? Well we can't afford to both have jobs.

#Americandream