Originally posted by: Vic
Originally posted by: 351Cleveland
Originally posted by: Vic
Suppose we cut all social and entitlement programs TODAY... no more food stamps, no more welfare, no more medicaid and Social Security. Shaniqua doesn't get her govt check next month, and neither does your grandmother.
What next?
Taxes drop by 80%, people take charge of their lives, pull themselves up by the boot straps, and start working for themselves? I know... crazy freaking idea... people being responsible for themselves.
No no... that's just crazy talk. Who would want that?
I'm a free market libertarian, and that really is nothing but crazy talk. What you suggest would be possible (and I strongly support it as an ends) if we phased in such a thing (over the course of decades probably, and with a greater level of economic justice and opportunity than we have now), but I said TODAY as in overnight.
In which case, you're as irrational as any revolutionary communist, just from the opposite (reactionary) perspective.
Hell, we'd probably have martial law within days, collapse of govt and economy not long after. In your idealism, you just don't understand why these things are in place. Welfare, etc. is how the wealthy bribe the poor so that they can stay wealthy, both by pacifying them and by giving them increased means to participate in the consumer economy.
It's part of the social contract that allows the wealthy to be and stay wealthy. Revolution or anarchy would follow without.
However, our systems are out-dated and not well thought-out. Our education systems are sorely in need of an overhaul, as education is the way that indoctrination fundamentally occurs. For all those who yell "if you come to this country, learn english!", well there needs to be a system in place to allow for that first.
Why is it that European countries have fully assimilated immigrants by 2nd generation, but America still has racial tensions centuries later? It's the high standard of uniform and equal education throughout Europe. There is no better equalizer.
Europe also has health care and welfare systems in place that are far more comprehensive than the ones in America, but they're not abused. Their citizens aren't raised to abuse them, and they help those they're meant to help, the sick and elderly. There's a minimum standard of living provided, but due to the superior pre-college education systems, there are much better options available to the average European.
