Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Kerry vs. Bush Discussion

Just remember, Random, that without "radical liberals" and if corporations had been allowed to run unchecked, we'd still have the 80 hour work week, child labor, and poverty wages.
Compassionate Conservatism depends on the people collecting the money to be compassionate.

Some are, but I wouldn't want to bet my mortgage on it.
 
Just read the proposal.
It's for $7.00 an hour.
Let's put that in perspective.
$7 an hour works out to $56 for an 8 hour day.
Just over 50 dollars! For a full days work.

Are you really going to tell me that paying someone $50 a day is an unfair burden???
That works out to about $15,000 a year.

I'm sorry, you call me a crazy man, but I think everyone should make at least $15,000 a year from a full time job!
I can't even imagine feeding a family on that, let alone the $11,000 that they make now.

C'mon now
 
You're not supposed to feed a family on that. To succeed in life, you have to work for it. If you're working a minimum wage job late in life, usually (for the most part, there are exceptions) it means you didn't try hard enough or work enough to succeed. This is America. We are the land of opportunity. But you have to TAKE the opportunities to succeed... and if you're not going to do that, you're not going to succeed.

The minimum wage isn't designed to give people a decent salary to live on, because you cannot feasibly live on minimum wage. It's basically counterproductive in a free market society... but it's there to prevent, as you said earlier, poverty wages and child labor.

~ RaNd0m
 
PokePop said:
Anyway, why are you making the argument about fiscal responsibilty? Even Republican conservatives are horrified by Bush's incredible Spend & Spend policies.
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Including me. (Independent with Republican tendencies... which is what people say when they aren't radical Republicans. :))

Anyhow, my thoughts which are random and scattered.

  • After watching Edwards and Kerry both give their speeches, my biggest thought is, "Why isn't Edwards the leading candidate?!?!?!" The man is a much better speaker and has a better image. Think Clinton with a better family image. I'd be highly tempted to vote for an Edwards/Kerry ticket, if it were in that respect.
  • Bush isn't a leader. I haven't had any major problems with anything he has done in office, but he has hardly down much to be proud of either. I'm not opposed to the Iraqi war, but I definitely don't feel Bush has done a great job handling it.
  • People give too much flak to Bush for the Iraq War. How about we harp on all the multitudes of idiot congressman who all voted to give Bush that kind of power. In one of the greatest cicumventions of the Constitution in history, one man can single handedly decide where thousands of Americans go and who they fight. Horrible error that is NOT Bush's fault. It's Congress' fault.
  • I want a candidate who opposes the PATRIOT Act as much as I do. Not a single one has popped up. The anti-terrorism fervor that is out and about makes it hard for anyone to oppose this without someone saying, "Do you not want our country safe?!?!" I want our country free before I want it safe. PATRIOT Act goes against almost all the ammendments regarding judiciary process.
  • I really wish John McCain, Collin Powell, or Barack Obama was running for president.

EDIT: I just read the string on the minimum wage.

All I can say is this. I've taken Economics. I've studied minimum wage for a paper. I've learned that Democratic, Republican, and Liberterian economists alike all agree on one thing: minimum wage adds to inflation. Many believe that it is reactionary to inflation; however, all the math shows that minimum wage only adds to the problem of inflation. Something needs to be done about the Reagenomics of the 80s that has drastically increased inflation.

Man, if only we had a African American, philosopher, economist candidate. That would be like the ultimate President right there.
 
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"You're not supposed to feed a family on that. To succeed in life, you have to work for it. If you're working a minimum wage job late in life, usually (for the most part, there are exceptions) it means you didn't try hard enough or work enough to succeed. This is America. We are the land of opportunity. But you have to TAKE the opportunities to succeed... and if you're not going to do that, you're not going to succeed."

That's assuming everyone has an opportunity to succeed. From what I've seen personally, a lot of people don't unless someone steps in.

Here's an interesting article on Bush's post election plans:

http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0601.html

And an article on proposed health care reform:

http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/health_care/fairness.html
 
And from what I've seen personally Yoshi, everyone from all walks of life can succeed. Writing people off due to their class/race is foolishness... because drive and determination beat out any dehabilitating factors that may exist.

~ RaNd0m
 
RaNdOm: You do realize that these are real people working these jobs?
Sure, someone can move up, but there are still people slaving away for these wages. Having these high minded theories is fine, but the consequences of them don't affect statistics, they affect real people, real families.
 
Of course these people are real. But the fact of the matter is, these are low paying jobs for a simple reason: anybody can fill them.

This is one of the most important parts of schooling... to realize you have to do SOMETHING special to get somewhere in the world.

There are ways for these people to advance their lives, even with help from the government, whether it be welfare or government grants to go to school, or whatever.

I disagree with continuous welfare because people basically don't want to leave their comfort zones and they're on welfare the rest of their lives.

I just don't understand how a family receiving welfare who has a single mom working 2 minimum wage jobs can go out and buy her kid a new car. It doesn't make sense to me, and yet it's a real story. :p

I'm not going to win this argument obviously, because I'm not "compassionate". But the way I see it, compassion is by helping these people get OUT of the ruts they're in, not by giving them money so it's ok to be in the rut.

~ RaNd0m
 
"And from what I've seen personally Yoshi, everyone from all walks of life can succeed. Writing people off due to their class/race is foolishness... because drive and determination beat out any dehabilitating factors that may exist."

Funny, I thought thie situation was reversed. You seemed to be writing these people off of slackers who don't want to work, which for most of them couldn't be further from the truth.

"I disagree with continuous welfare because people basically don't want to leave their comfort zones and they're on welfare the rest of their lives."

You have a very strange definition of a comfort zone there.

Heres an article on plans for helping make college affordable:

http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/education/college.html
 
So what do you propose Yoshi? How do you propose we deal with poverty?

It's easy to have critiques but it's not easy to give answers.

Poverty is a necessary evil in a capitalistic society. You either have a small portion living in poverty, or the entire country living in poverty. There has never been a society without a poverty class.
 
The end result of this is simply that you'll never know what it's like until you've been there. Once you have been there, there's little chance you'll think the same way.

So, to say this as respectfully as possible, both to prevent this from getting out of hand and because our conversations have led to me respecting you at least on a personal level, you probably don't live a life of privelege, but I certainly don't envision you wanting for anything either.

And you stereotype welfare recipients way too much. Not everyone is in a state of perpetual welfare, and not everyone abuses the money they recieve. A lot of these people need it to supplement their income because they could never afford to go to college in the first place... These people, regardless of personal ambition, are stuck in the bottom rungs of society for the rest of their lives, unless they sell drugs or something else illegal to make real money. Not that I have been there, but I think it's obvious that you have to be in that situation before you can have any real sympathy for it. Condescension towards people who are not born into privelege doesn't help the situation any more than my disdain for the well-to-do just for having their economic status does.

JasonthePwnda said:
Yes n00b, i have to write n00b and pwn in every post. Also, I do know what Communism is, I am Chinese (of course that is n00b Communism but thats what happens anyway). I took the US and European History AP Tests and obviously got the highest score on all of them.
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Can't believe I didn't see thise earlier. You missed my point, I think. I'm saying that net lingo doesn't make any sense in this context... So if you're trying to have a serious discussion, you could try explaining your points with real words whose meanings are easy to discern. And it would possibly make you look as intelligent as you claim to be. That's all I was saying.
 
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"Poverty is a necessary evil in a capitalistic society. You either have a small portion living in poverty, or the entire country living in poverty. There has never been a society without a poverty class."

So in other words, it's okay for people to have trouble making ends meet, to not be able to give their kids a good eduction, to have to choose between health care and food, etc?

"So what do you propose Yoshi? How do you propose we deal with poverty?"

Poverty is a multifaceted problem that results from a variety of sources, including crime, lack of eduction, and pure economic factors. I've already addressed education and some of the economic factors, so here's some plans on safer communities:

http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/communities/communities_plan.html
 
Hi, you guys want to here about jobs over seas? Check these results... According to the Wall Street Journal the Heinz-Kerry Corporations own 32 factories in Europe, 18 factories in Asia and the Pacific. They own 27 factories in North America some of which are in Mexico and Caribbean. So according to the stats 80% of Heinz products are over seas. Imagine how many hundred American workers do not have jobs because of this. Also do you think these foeign workers get the same benefits as Americans. Of course they get alot worse. But what else would you expect of the double talking Kerry who blames Bush for sending jobs overseas... This is typical of him.
 
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Don't worry DrJ, I learned my lesson once to not take things personally on here.

I actually live in one of the poorest counties in my state... I live in rural Illinois, where there are quite a few people who "are stuck in the bottom rungs of society for the rest of their lives". To me, much of the problems with poverty, at least in my area, is money mismanagement. People choose to buy big screen tv's instead of medicine... alcohol instead of milk... cigarettes instead of food.

I'm not saying that there aren't people that are struggling to make ends meet. I KNOW this because I've lived it. But I also know that you don't need to stay there forever, that it's possible to get out of it.

It seems my argument isn't getting much credibility because most of the people on this board are well-to-do, middle to upper class...so I guess people assume I am as well. I do not live in poverty... I have before, my family has been on welfare, when I lived in South Dakota. My dad is a pastor, and at one point his income was all we were receiving. If you know any pastors, you realize they don't make much money... and in South Dakota, the synod minimum was well below the poverty level. So what happened? Well the welfare we received, the grant money we received, helped my mom go to school to be a nurse. Because my parents both were able to have jobs, our income increased... and we were able to get out of the rut. The welfare HELPED us get out of the situation we were in, and that is why I do not OPPOSE welfare programs. However, the welfare did not GET us out. My mom choosing to do something about it, by going back to school, is what got us out.

It isn't the government's job to provide an income for people. That's my basic premise. I don't mind it for a time, for a period, heck even a year... but it's not something that should be provided infinitely. There should be benefits to people who are LOOKING for jobs... and who can find them.

Also, it's fair to say you don't need to attend college to make it in our society. I know plenty of people who are doing pretty well working as farmers, mechanics, and even radio jocks like myself, who have never gone to college. You don't HAVE to be born into riches to be rich.

"So in other words, it's okay for people to have trouble making ends meet, to not be able to give their kids a good eduction, to have to choose between health care and food, etc?" - Yoshi1001

It's not ok. But the government cannot solve this problem. It can help. Charities can help. But only they can truly fix the problem.

~ RaNd0m
 
Dragon Master said:
Hi, you guys want to here about jobs over seas? Check these results... According to the Wall Street Journal the Heinz-Kerry Corporations own 32 factories in Europe, 18 factories in Asia and the Pacific. They own 27 factories in North America some of which are in Mexico and Caribbean. So according to the stats 80% of Heinz products are over seas. Imagine how many hundred American workers do not have jobs because of this. Also do you think these foeign workers get the same benefits as Americans. Of course they get alot worse. But what else would you expect of the double talking Kerry who blames Bush for sending jobs overseas... This is typical of him.
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While I understand the point you're trying to make, I have yet to see ANYONE blame George Bush for sending jobs overseas. Everyone is blaming the corporations that actually DO it, not the president. The president isn't the CEO of these companies. Kerry is a slave to the corporations just as much as Bush is, and anyone who thinks otherwise probably hasn't looked up campaign donors.

But as far as statistics go... If they own 32 in Europe, 18 in Asia and the Pacific, and 27 in various parts of North America, that's 77 factories, 50 of which are overseas. 50 of 77 isn't 80%, it's a little over 60%. So either you or the Wall Street Journal is taking the liberty of coloring these facts to help prove a point, in which case the source is not trustworthy. :)
 
NoTime4LoveDrJ said:
The end result of this is simply that you'll never know what it's like until you've been there. Once you have been there, there's little chance you'll think the same way.
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Dudes, this is not true. I know many people, including my parents, who came the the US with less than $100 (this was 15 years ago) and could barely speak English. They sent the welfare checks we got to my grandparents (who were way poorer, surprisingly). Now, our income is enough to put us up in the "Upper Class" that Kerry keeps hatin on. I have lived "below the poverty line" for 5 years and even then, the democrats were still as n00b as they are today. Let me give you a dem example.

Edited UM NO. Banned.
 
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"It's not ok. But the government cannot solve this problem. It can help. Charities can help. But only they can truly fix the problem."

And what happens when they don't have the resources, as has often been the case as of late. For example, the Salvation Army ran a special "Christmas in July" drive to raise more money. The fact of the matter is, there has to be a consistient source of money for overaching problems as part of a total package.

"I have yet to see ANYONE blame George Bush for sending jobs overseas."

While Bush has yet to outsource anyone (that I know of) he has basically said that the practice is good for america on several America.
 
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JasonthePwnda said:
Dudes, this is not true. I know many people, including my parents, who came the the US with less than $100 (this was 15 years ago) and could barely speak English. They sent the welfare checks we got to my grandparents (who were way poorer, surprisingly). Now, our income is enough to put us up in the "Upper Class" that Kerry keeps hatin on. I have lived "below the poverty line" for 5 years and even then, the democrats were still as n00b as they are today. Let me give you a dem example.
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... ? Or if you exploit bad things that you do, then you profit from it?

And seriously...

the democrats were still as n00b as they are today
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... You can't just stick a word in where it has no real application. Things like this (and Monica Lewinsky comments) really just make you look ignorant. Same with misusing "uber" like every other internet fanboy.
 
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