Stitch on 7/11/2008 at 19:33
edgy!
And in the nigga please department:
Quote Posted by heywood
Yeah, like it was really hard to predict this election :rolleyes:
Yeah, Barack Hussein Obama has just been riding the wave of inevitability this past year!
Fett: thanks mang, but truth be told I'm pretty much just regurgitating the analysis of savvier people than myself (Nate Silver and Al Giordano, mostly).
Fringe on 7/11/2008 at 19:57
Nate Silver is my hero. The only state he failed to call accurately was Indiana, and then just by a hair.
BEAR on 7/11/2008 at 20:16
Quote Posted by heywood
I thought dethtoll's reason was going to be that he hoped Kerry would pull out of Iraq or maybe he disliked Bush so much that he had to vote for Kerry. I could sorta understand that.
Anyway...
Obama grew on me during the campaign to the point where I'm comfortable with him as President (well, as long as he doesn't pick Kerry as Secretary of State). It's the Congress that worries me. We just re-elected the same dysfunctional Congress we gave a 9% approval rating to in July.
I'm not exactly a big fan of the current congress, but lets just admit they didn't have exactly the best situation possible (at least in terms of the democrats). Tiny majority, republican president, I'm not really that surprised they weren't able to accomplish much. Also, what the fuck does most of the country even know of the congress to be able to have an opinion. I try to stay informed but I don't even keep that up to date on the goings on of the legislature. People are not happy with the government in general and the congress makes a good scapegoat. Ask most of them specificically what they don't like and you aren't likely to get an answer besides their observation that things aren't doing great (except the bailout, which also most of them wont understand).
paloalto90 on 7/11/2008 at 21:27
Quote:
In Dickensian England and the modern welfare state, public and private charity is too often mired in the resentment and superiority of the givers.
How are you divining the mental attitude of those who give?Why would you be resentful if it is a choice?Guilt?What is the motivaton to give?
Is there some poll which covers the reasons why people give or their attitude?
If your goal is complete eradication of poverty then charity won't cut the mustard for sure, but then simply throwing more money at the problem won't do it either.
And people have more of an opportunity to get themselves out of poverty in the modern state than in jolly old England.
Muzman on 7/11/2008 at 21:43
Quote Posted by paloalto90
If your goal is complete eradication of poverty then charity won't cut the mustard for sure, but then simply throwing more money at the problem won't do it either.
I wasn't aware these were somehow matched opposites either
BEAR on 7/11/2008 at 22:52
Seriously, who has ever advocated just "throwing money at the problem"? Thats never been a policy of anyone for anything, or at least nobody would ever admit it. So, technically you are right paloalto, but thats like saying "burning our money wont fix the problem". Charities as stated prevoiusly are good at specific reasonably small goals, but they lack the influence and power of government to tackle root causes of poverty on a large scale.
I'm not sure we'll ever solve poverty until its actually deemed important by the entire world. We all talk like we do, but the fact of the matter is a lot of people in America are not cool with their money going to Africa, because when it comes down to it, we care a lot more about ourselves than we do about other people.
june gloom on 8/11/2008 at 02:11
Quote Posted by BEAR
Tiny majority, republican president, I'm not really that surprised they weren't able to accomplish much.
Which is as it should be. The more government fights with itself the less they spend infringing on my civil rights. The current situation has me scared, in that regard. Fortunately they're not filibuster proof.
Nicker on 8/11/2008 at 02:19
Quote Posted by paloalto90
How are you divining the mental attitude of those who give?Why would you be resentful if it is a choice?Guilt?What is the motivaton to give?
Is there some poll which covers the reasons why people give or their attitude?
If your goal is complete eradication of poverty then charity won't cut the mustard for sure, but then simply throwing more money at the problem won't do it either.
And people have more of an opportunity to get themselves out of poverty in the modern state than in jolly old England.
I was trying to keep my rant brief while covering a fair bit of ground and since altruism was done to death in a previous thread I thought I'd spare us the retread. But since you ask - yes, guilt is a prime motivator for charity but so is compassion.
I was talking about the Dickensian model of charity and my comments about resentment and superiority referred to that brand of "generosity" not the act of human sharing as a whole. "By their works ye shall know them." The poorhouses, debtor's prisons, orphanages and workhouses only differed by their demographics, not by the brutality of their charity.
Even welfare in enlightened western democracies is often punitive and judgemental. Designed by people who have probably never known sustained poverty, mental or physical disability, discrimination. Administered by people who draw steady salaries, with health benefits, union protection on behalf of reluctant tax payers who can think of other things they'd rather spend their hard earned money on.
Perhaps I used the wrong term - perhaps contempt is a better word, not resentment.
As to your closing statement - do you have some statistical proof that the road from poverty to prosperity is shorter today than a hundred years ago, and that this is so for more people?
SlyFoxx on 8/11/2008 at 03:48
Quote Posted by BEAR
Seriously, who has ever advocated just "throwing money at the problem"? Thats never been a policy of anyone for anything, or at least nobody would ever admit it. So, technically you are right paloalto, but thats like saying "burning our money wont fix the problem". Charities as stated prevoiusly are good at specific reasonably small goals, but they lack the influence and power of
government to tackle root causes of poverty on a large scale. RE: bold number one. What? Are you kidding me?
RE: bold number two. How's government done so far?
