As others have hinted at, this would unfairly target pot users, which IMHO is certainly less a scourge on society than alcohol and other drugs. Pot remains in your bloodstream for around a month while other much more serious drugs like cocaine are flushed within a week. Also, I would like to point out that this probably wouldn't do anything about prescription drug users, half of my co-workers are amped up on some sort of anti-depressent/anti-anxiety drug all the time, this stuff impairs judgement as much as anything else. Don't believe me? Take an Xanex and tell me if you don't get high.
Because of some of the things I've outlined above, the number of companies who drug test has dropped dramatically over the past 10 years.
Because of some of the things I've outlined above, the number of companies who drug test has dropped dramatically over the past 10 years.
There are two basic points of view on this. The Republican point of view is that I got my life in order after having been beaten as a child and joining the beating team, and now I will beat losers like I was beaten. I don't want to help anybody because I'm into abuse. I hate the part of me that is a victim and will torture it.
The Democrat, having been beaten develops sympathy for those who are beaten and does not join the beating winning team, but fights to right what is wrong. He seeks to help the victims. He hates the part of himself who wants to victimize and so he hates the Republican.
Since these two points of view include almost everybody, almost everybody and all our policies are insane.
Only he who has integrated the opposites in higher understanding has the faintest idea what is going on, but, trust me, nobody else wants to hear from him.
Nothing can be different than it is. Humanity is asleep and everything human is robotic as a consequence of that sleep. Humanities sleep is a dream that humanity is awake.
The Democrat, having been beaten develops sympathy for those who are beaten and does not join the beating winning team, but fights to right what is wrong. He seeks to help the victims. He hates the part of himself who wants to victimize and so he hates the Republican.
Since these two points of view include almost everybody, almost everybody and all our policies are insane.
Only he who has integrated the opposites in higher understanding has the faintest idea what is going on, but, trust me, nobody else wants to hear from him.
Nothing can be different than it is. Humanity is asleep and everything human is robotic as a consequence of that sleep. Humanities sleep is a dream that humanity is awake.
Stunt
Diamond Member
- Jul 17, 2002
- 9,717
- 2
- 0
Do you honestly think a worker paid an hourly rate without supervision, motivation and leadership can be as productive as you suggest? Fact of the matter is engineers and management help better the bottom line, not "tax" it, unlike typical administrative jobs.Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie
Originally posted by: Stunt
Dave is not a moderate by any means, he blames all the world's problems on a few people and has no idea what is actually impacting his life and why.Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie
Dave is a moderate of sorts. He's certainly not a 'liberal'.
You have changed your views a great deal in the last two years, to the point that you are roughly speaking a neo-liberal free market supporter, which is not where you started.
I think the problem for you in terms of evaluating the positions of others is that you used to be a moderate, but are actually approaching the fringe of free market pure capitalism support, though your social positions are still relatively middle of the road.
Is all of this still because you don't like paying income tax?
Over the last coupe years I have made modest changes in my views and not because of my income tax. Even though I did make that thread about the unexpected plundering of my compensation, that is not enough to change my views. I've always supported fiscal conservative values, more private involvement in traditional government jurisdiction and more open borders.
If you look at the Canadian economy, over half of the country's GDP is taxed and redistributed...this gives us our balanced budget. I question whether the government is really able to redirect resources towards services people really want. I also question the effectiveness of the 'welfare state'; for many decades we have had a system which redistributes significant money to those less fortunate, yet you don't see people better off, the number of poor has stayed constant. If there is always going to be poor with all this assistance, is it even worth it? I mean it's difficult to gauge if more taxation and distrobution would really help.
Then there's the whole concept of individual mindset of social programs. Currently all people have free access to government programs and feel their money is already a form of charitable donation. For example if you make $100k, and you have worked your butt off to get there and your taxes (~$50k+ - income, sales, property, investment taxes) are all going towards the social programs intended for the poor, you are less likely to donate to charity and help those less off. That's the job of government. Take social programs out of the picture and you will have far more incentive to donate (we saw this in Alberta with the tax credit and how Americans donate more than Canadians) to charity and more responsibility falls on the individuals to not depend on this money for their day to day lives; it is up to them to make the right choices.
Also consider the amount of tax people pay; I already pay ~$30k+ a year, this money would be far more effective if I was able to sponsor someone less fortunate. The number of rich and middle class far outweigh the number of poor and creating huge government institutions to deal with this rather than direct assistance is far less effective. Imagine if each rich person had to help one poor person, this would significantly lower taxes and dependence for everyone. Hell maybe the successful person could pass down some insight to the people down on their luck.
These are revelations I have had the last while, my views have remained unchanged, I still think we are overtaxed and shouldn't rely on government to act in our best interests. If you see a significant difference in my views, you must not have known me all that well 2 years ago
If you have a look at the policies Dave advocates, he is a moderate. The fact that he believes in the boogeyman is neither here nor there.
A system of no social programs doesn't work the way you describe, and never has. While I agree with the notion that social programs (excluding education and healthcare) as entitlements take away the incentive to do better, they've also been cut to the point of poverty, meaning you cannot use them to maintain a comfortable lifestyle, and largely restoring the missing incentive.
The fact is you are quite hung up on the amount of tax that you pay; that's somewhat ironic when you consider that like most people making over $40-50K, you don't actually produce anything. In fact, your wage can be seen as a tax on the productivity of the actual workers, with the promise that those dollars will be spent making the workers more productive.
As far as your views changing, you have moved from a somewhat conservative, moderate position, to one that is well out in right field; you've also changed from a person who had interest in ideas like government accountability to one who is willing to file such concerns under 'Stephen Harper says he's bringing us government accountability' and then simply ignore everything he does to prove otherwise.
I am not hung up on the amount of taxation, but the wastefulness of its use. I can full well complain about ineffective welfare programs, inadequate roads and transporatation systems, poor education standards, long lines and limitations of the heathcare system.
While I do agree with Stephen Harper on many issues, I do have my disagreements. I choose not to publicly smear him for this as the alternatives are not close to representing my views. While government does still have issues with accountability...i mean it is still the state...Harper's government has does nothing more than progress this problem in the right direction. If you disagree, look at how the Liberals dealt with the sponsorship scandal.
I don't like the legislation, and contrary to the popular point of view, it's not because I'm some pro-drug bleeding heart liberal, it's actually a bad idea from a CONSERVATIVE point of view. Keep in mind that the perfect world goal would be to not have people that NEED welfare, drug testing does not really help that problem on its own. The Republican goal isn't to decrease the number of people that need welfare so much as the number of people that get welfare, which is something this kind of testing WOULD accomplish if drug abuse among people on welfare is a problem. I'm all for keeping them off drugs (as I think they probably have a better chance of getting a job if they were clean), but I'm not sure drug testing alone is a good way to do that...a better option is drug testing coupled with MANDATORY (if you want to keep receiving welfare) treatment programs.
I can hear the conservatives opening their mouths to object, so let me explain. I know it goes against the base "conservative" desire to punish people who aren't financially successful, but I think that overall it would be more effective in the long run. We might pay out more for the treatment in the beginning, but as more people are able to hold down real jobs, the overall payouts would go down AND we'd have more productive people in the workforce (assuming the program was set up correctly). Welfare programs aren't very useful because they don't remove the need for people to rely on welfare, this legislation won't help solve that problem.
I can hear the conservatives opening their mouths to object, so let me explain. I know it goes against the base "conservative" desire to punish people who aren't financially successful, but I think that overall it would be more effective in the long run. We might pay out more for the treatment in the beginning, but as more people are able to hold down real jobs, the overall payouts would go down AND we'd have more productive people in the workforce (assuming the program was set up correctly). Welfare programs aren't very useful because they don't remove the need for people to rely on welfare, this legislation won't help solve that problem.
3chordcharlie
Diamond Member
- Mar 30, 2004
- 9,859
- 1
- 81
Originally posted by: Stunt
Do you honestly think a worker paid an hourly rate without supervision, motivation and leadership can be as productive as you suggest? Fact of the matter is engineers and management help better the bottom line, not "tax" it, unlike typical administrative jobs.Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie
Originally posted by: Stunt
Dave is not a moderate by any means, he blames all the world's problems on a few people and has no idea what is actually impacting his life and why.Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie
Dave is a moderate of sorts. He's certainly not a 'liberal'.
You have changed your views a great deal in the last two years, to the point that you are roughly speaking a neo-liberal free market supporter, which is not where you started.
I think the problem for you in terms of evaluating the positions of others is that you used to be a moderate, but are actually approaching the fringe of free market pure capitalism support, though your social positions are still relatively middle of the road.
Is all of this still because you don't like paying income tax?
Over the last coupe years I have made modest changes in my views and not because of my income tax. Even though I did make that thread about the unexpected plundering of my compensation, that is not enough to change my views. I've always supported fiscal conservative values, more private involvement in traditional government jurisdiction and more open borders.
If you look at the Canadian economy, over half of the country's GDP is taxed and redistributed...this gives us our balanced budget. I question whether the government is really able to redirect resources towards services people really want. I also question the effectiveness of the 'welfare state'; for many decades we have had a system which redistributes significant money to those less fortunate, yet you don't see people better off, the number of poor has stayed constant. If there is always going to be poor with all this assistance, is it even worth it? I mean it's difficult to gauge if more taxation and distrobution would really help.
Then there's the whole concept of individual mindset of social programs. Currently all people have free access to government programs and feel their money is already a form of charitable donation. For example if you make $100k, and you have worked your butt off to get there and your taxes (~$50k+ - income, sales, property, investment taxes) are all going towards the social programs intended for the poor, you are less likely to donate to charity and help those less off. That's the job of government. Take social programs out of the picture and you will have far more incentive to donate (we saw this in Alberta with the tax credit and how Americans donate more than Canadians) to charity and more responsibility falls on the individuals to not depend on this money for their day to day lives; it is up to them to make the right choices.
Also consider the amount of tax people pay; I already pay ~$30k+ a year, this money would be far more effective if I was able to sponsor someone less fortunate. The number of rich and middle class far outweigh the number of poor and creating huge government institutions to deal with this rather than direct assistance is far less effective. Imagine if each rich person had to help one poor person, this would significantly lower taxes and dependence for everyone. Hell maybe the successful person could pass down some insight to the people down on their luck.
These are revelations I have had the last while, my views have remained unchanged, I still think we are overtaxed and shouldn't rely on government to act in our best interests. If you see a significant difference in my views, you must not have known me all that well 2 years ago
If you have a look at the policies Dave advocates, he is a moderate. The fact that he believes in the boogeyman is neither here nor there.
A system of no social programs doesn't work the way you describe, and never has. While I agree with the notion that social programs (excluding education and healthcare) as entitlements take away the incentive to do better, they've also been cut to the point of poverty, meaning you cannot use them to maintain a comfortable lifestyle, and largely restoring the missing incentive.
The fact is you are quite hung up on the amount of tax that you pay; that's somewhat ironic when you consider that like most people making over $40-50K, you don't actually produce anything. In fact, your wage can be seen as a tax on the productivity of the actual workers, with the promise that those dollars will be spent making the workers more productive.
As far as your views changing, you have moved from a somewhat conservative, moderate position, to one that is well out in right field; you've also changed from a person who had interest in ideas like government accountability to one who is willing to file such concerns under 'Stephen Harper says he's bringing us government accountability' and then simply ignore everything he does to prove otherwise.
I am not hung up on the amount of taxation, but the wastefulness of its use. I can full well complain about ineffective welfare programs, inadequate roads and transporatation systems, poor education standards, long lines and limitations of the heathcare system.
While I do agree with Stephen Harper on many issues, I do have my disagreements. I choose not to publicly smear him for this as the alternatives are not close to representing my views. While government does still have issues with accountability...i mean it is still the state...Harper's government has does nothing more than progress this problem in the right direction. If you disagree, look at how the Liberals dealt with the sponsorship scandal.
Refusing to criticize someone, because you think they're still better than the alternative is a pretty weak position; just because you disagree with some things doens't mean they can't earn your vote, and even your endorsement, but verbally supporting everything they do, even if you don't like it is a poor decision.
The way the liberals dealt with the sponsorship scandal was highly appropriate: they conducted an arms-length review with ample resources to make sure it was done correctly.
The fact that there was a sponsorship scandal is the evidence of ethical weakness you're looking for, not the way it was handled after the fact.
As far as the worker-tax analogy, do you honestly think your company would be as productive without roads? Do you really think roads would be more efficient with totally decentralized planning? A lot of the transportation problems we have are due to 'legacy' roads that were built in a one-off manner, and have simply been maintained and expanded for a century or two; the road might have accomplished it's original goal admirably, but fails to work well in an overall 'system' (look at the entire city of Waterloo for a good example).
Welfare programs, and even healthcare, were not created with the intention that they be ultimately more efficient than private systems; from a pure market standpoint, a public program can never be more efficient than a private one (it's worth a little bit of graphing to see what outcomes can occur and still be 'efficient' though). There is of course a difference between pure economic efficiency (which you could never have while giving someone something they can't afford), and wastefulness, and it makes sense to fight wastefulness at all times.
Your take on welfare starts from the assumption that everyone on welfare chooses to be there, and therefore instantly falls apart from an analytical perspective.
Stunt
Diamond Member
- Jul 17, 2002
- 9,717
- 2
- 0
I don't verbally support everything they do, I verbally support all of the issues I personally support. If there is an issue I disagree with, I will keep my yap shut; unless it is a significant issue.
Absolutely no Liberals were held to account and the inquiry was dragged out far too long; all it was intended to do was keep us from revolting against the Liberal government. Luckily we were given the opportunity to choose a alternative and Canadians did revolt. The only reason the Gomery commssion was created was because Canadians, media demanded it. The Liberals did not realize their wrong doings and get to the bottom of it themselves.
As for social programs, I have made my points very clear; you have admitted the public sector is far more inefficient than the private and I have no faith in government to 'fight wastefulness'. You live in a dream world where the state is run like the private sector without actually having the competitive forces of the market.
All welfare recipiants have made bad choices in their lives, and yes they were choices...people don't choose welfare, they end up there. Just as the drunk driver didn't choose to go to jail; what he did choose was not think of the consequences, and didn't follow the rules. The byproduct was jail.
Absolutely no Liberals were held to account and the inquiry was dragged out far too long; all it was intended to do was keep us from revolting against the Liberal government. Luckily we were given the opportunity to choose a alternative and Canadians did revolt. The only reason the Gomery commssion was created was because Canadians, media demanded it. The Liberals did not realize their wrong doings and get to the bottom of it themselves.
As for social programs, I have made my points very clear; you have admitted the public sector is far more inefficient than the private and I have no faith in government to 'fight wastefulness'. You live in a dream world where the state is run like the private sector without actually having the competitive forces of the market.
All welfare recipiants have made bad choices in their lives, and yes they were choices...people don't choose welfare, they end up there. Just as the drunk driver didn't choose to go to jail; what he did choose was not think of the consequences, and didn't follow the rules. The byproduct was jail.
Are you really sure about that? After all, I'm fairly certain that you didn't drag yourself out of the gutter to become a productive member of society...you were probably born into a position in society where it was, if not easy, then at least EASIER for you to do well. I tend to feel the same way, I've certainly worked hard to get where I am, but MOST people don't pull themselves up by their bootstraps, if you start out pretty low on the totem pole of society, it will be harder for you to do better for yourself.
But a feeling of "fairness" isn't really the main argument, the fact is that there ARE people who aren't doing so great, and even without welfare they tend to be a drain on society in one form or another. Wouldn't we be better off if, instead of just telling them to live with their "choices" we helped them do better? Welfare might not be the answer, but telling them to go cram it with walnuts seems like a bad idea on a number of levels.
3chordcharlie
Diamond Member
- Mar 30, 2004
- 9,859
- 1
- 81
You have to understand the economic definition of 'efficiency' before you recognize the 'truthiness' of calling public solutions 'inefficient'.
I assume for the purposes of charity that you exclude people on welfare due to disability from your sweeping statements. Even so, many people end up on welfare at one time or another for reasons that were not particularly related to 'choices'. A good number of long-term welfare takers fall in the category you describe, but they are hardly in the majority.
Who is benefitting from welfare anyway? The people or the government? Whose power has grown, the government or the people?
I have to say I agree with some of Rainsford's point.
Also, wouldn't it be better if they actually take steps to curb drug production, like putting some restrictions on the sale of Sudafed and others that have the necessary ingridiens?
Also, wouldn't it be better if they actually take steps to curb drug production, like putting some restrictions on the sale of Sudafed and others that have the necessary ingridiens?
"If" it is a problem? You've obviously never taken a stroll through the projects.
I say :thumbsup: though I don't believe this has a chance in hell of passing. Liberals pride themselves on welfare and "social" programs, and those votes are too precious (even if we're talking about crack heads and meth whores).
umbrella39
Lifer
- Jun 11, 2004
- 13,819
- 1,126
- 126
Again, the Pabster forgets what party is in control. But hey, you got a chance to toss the words liberals and social programs into yet another post. Good job. :thumbsup: If this is such a great idea, the republican run house, senate, and white house should have no problems passing it right. Yep, blame the liberals. And thank God for all the crack head and meth whores that get out to vote each election for dems! Even when we pay those jerks in crack to vote, it is still so damn hard to actually get them to go do what they were paid for.
Remove pot from the list of illegal drugs and I am all for it. But again, as stated, coke and meth go through your system very quickly. You would be surpised at the lengths an addict will go to get their fix. Even if it means not using for the few days preceding a drug test. It would catch very few illicit drug users and punish all the pot smokers. That is not right imo.Perhaps they'll turn to crime to support their drug habbit, and then it will cost more in the form of property damage, enforcement, leagal procedures, and incarceration.
Just a guess...
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