As i've said before, i'm a free markets guy. but i'm also a fan of logical consistency. admittedly, this isn't always possible. its just not the way the world is structured.
a lot of people are posting around the net that the cash for clunkers program, and the health care reform programs, are taking their money and redistributing it to others. i don't know if anyone is aware of this, but that's what the government always does. that's how it works. and, well, the cash for clunkers program is actually creating wealth, it is successfully leveraging federal expenditures by anywhere from 4-7 times, depending on whatever the average vehicle cost comes out to be.
the problem i see is this ridiculous complaint about giving your tax dollars to someone else. name any aspect of government expenditure, and that's what they are doing. defense spending... yeah, same thing. medicare... same thing. senator's wages... same thing. paying prison guards... same thing. building roads... same thing. its an absolutely worthless objection. just say it. you don't like giving money to poor people. that i understand. maybe not agree with. but at least it's honest.
another poster objected to it because there was no wealth restrictions, they said that it let rich people trade in too. but really, how many rich people drive older cars? i know the ones i know don't. unless they are classic type cars, the whole jay leno thing.
more and more, i'm starting to realize, that the problem in our society today is the racial and religious beliefs of americans. the truth is, that all this birther stuff, and the health care complaints, etc, are in large part a continuation of the Nixon/Reagan racial strategy. this really disappoints me.
there is also this large idea out there that obama is "not like us" because people mistakenly believe he is not christian. sadly, he is. even sadder, is that people think to be american you have to be a christian. which is more and more why people like hitchens and dawkins are important. but its these two strains, that our president doesn't "look like us" and doesn't "believe like us" that are creating all this strife playing out in our culture.
i can't take all the bad ideas floating around out there right now. if you think one welfare program is bad because its a redistribution, then you need to distinguish more, what makes this one worse than others. that isn't being discussed at all, which leads me to the conclusion that there isn't a real principled reason as to why it they hold this opinion. i'm even considering changing my political affiliation, this is all so disappointing. and there's no room for freethinkers anymore.
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i've used the ol' "stop using my tax dollars for frivolous purposes" before, but mainly when talking about life imprisonment for scumbags. i'd like to think that a guillotine would be a much better investment.
i also refuse to give money to homeless people until i'm financially stable. but that's a whole other ball of wax.
now that i think about it, an even better investment for the thousands spent annually on housing killers and rapists would be, after the decapitation, get some homeless guy an apartment. same money spent, but twice the number of problems solved. that'd seem worthy of my tax money.
i think the cash for clunkers thing was a good idea. an even better one would be building electric "gas stations" nationwide since more people seem to be wary of electric cars at the moment based on convenience rather than cost. though that investment would probably cost a great deal more than the clunkers program, given the need to engineer some sort of advanced speed charging system.
*applause*
footnote: the Word Verification is "condrom". Weird.
gideon, just to make a quick point, I used to share your thoughts on 'housing killers'. then, after taking courses and hearing in the news that a lifetime sentence costs much less than attempting to kill a person. the endless court appeals, lawyer fees, etc. that the government pays for costs more than feeding an inmate for life, which is really all that the gov't pays for. an life inmate also must perform some community service, work at the jail in some capacity, etc. it's a strange concept that i didn't fully understand at first, but is a accurate one.
that said, it really has nothing to do with imler's argument. i gave up caring about who runs the government or what programs are occurring because, as a middle class citizen, I am rarely affected by it. maybe someday i will care more...
Scientology will soon take over the world, and we shall all be free!
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