Bush Explained

And to take another page from Rush, the poorest americans live better than 90% of the rest of the world. I think 50% of the world doesn't have a phone in their house. So cry me a river that someone may have to get a used car so that some 12 year-old in liberia may be able to play splinter cell rather than living it.

trdrmac
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We are probably in agreement on a lot of things. Until recently I hadn't thought about the banning of DDT and I had used it many years ago. Recently an article related the EPA decision to ban its' use and how the director completely ignored science and banned it because of political pressure. Now it seems that the worries were not justified but in 3rd world countries where malaria is a major problem literally hundred of thousands have died that didn't need to because of our excessive regulation. There needs to be a balance with safety and yet not killing people because of ideology.
 
Maxpi - You are right on. For another example look at British Columbia, Canada over the last 15 years, same thing. Businesses leave and a total sense of discouragement sets in over everyone as they have to be more heavily taxed to keep up the services that spoiled people demand from the politicians. The same politicians promise more to garner votes and the vicious circle continues. Socialized medicine. of course, is one of the culprits there and a 7% sales tax to pay for it, as of 10 years ago.
Then Canada added a Value Added Tax on virtually everything and doesn't have a military budget large enough to notice because they rely on our spending on the military to protect them. It all goes for social programs.

Back to California. Last week I spent some time with some people who are leaving the state, and they are certainly not alone when you look at the influx of Californians into Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. The interesting thing to me is that the conservatives are leaving the state in droves and what will be left is a more liberal populice who will have to pay for their own excesses. Talk about a perfect example of what happens when liberals take over.
 
Quote from msfe:



Peace is as far away as ever

Thursday July 31, 2003

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You don't get it really. Israel had peace in the bag before the "peace process" started. The peace process is designed by the US to keep a balance of power in place, not to bring peace. When the "peace process" began Israel had just kicked the krap out of several of it's neighbors and was suing for peace on it's own terms and it would have worked out great for Israel. Why they ever let the US get into it I will not understand for a long time probably.
 
Quote from Doubter:



Back to California. Last week I spent some time with some people who are leaving the state, and they are certainly not alone when you look at the influx of Californians into Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. The interesting thing to me is that the conservatives are leaving the state in droves and what will be left is a more liberal populice who will have to pay for their own excesses. Talk about a perfect example of what happens when liberals take over.
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That seems to be pretty much what is happening. The environmentalists are actually really happy with this and possibly some of the wealthy people that really don't need to be concerned with a job base or receiving anything from the public sector. If I put myself in the shoes of the rich I just see a two-tiered economy and plenty of cheap labor to keep my casa in shape, so maybe there aren't really any people with clout to oppose the whole process. No sense stressing over it all, it just seems to be a cycle that repeats itself endlessly and culminates in collapse and re-starting of the economic engines. The real trick is to get to know the whole cycle really well and just always be on the right side of the trade.

Max
 
Quote from Doubter:

There needs to be a balance with safety and yet not killing people because of ideology. [/B]
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That is a very good point and in our own ways I think that is what we all strive for. ANd Im sure you are right, there are plenty of things we would agree on.

Here is an interesting "dilemma" that I have been thinking about over the past two weeks.

For the past 3 or so years I have volunteered for a non-profit group that teaches parenting type classes. These are open to the public, however, a good deal of the parents are court ordered to attend. And in the current class about 1/2 of the parents don't even have custody of their kids, due to severe abuse and neglect.

I facilitate one of the kids groups and one of the children in my group we'll call him SFB last week was a real pain in my ass. To the point of disturbing the other kids. We'll last week I was very angry, yelled at him, you know the drill.

Fast forward to this week. Same problems. However I come to find out his Father is in jail. The new Boyfriend of the mother just got out of jail. He is one of three kids, with three stamps needed on fathers day. There have been numerous police visits to the household for abuse and neglect calls.

On one had I think the mother and fathers should be sterilized. The children removed from the house and placed in a safe environment.

At the end of the day I think we need to be much tougher on "bad personal decisions" and this is where I would part with most on the left. However, I also see that there are needs of many that are not being met on the most basic levels. And this is where I part from the right.

Just some food for thought.

Mac
 
Just some food for thought.

Mac
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Keep up the good work. I always take the "right" angle on things and that leads me to seek private solutions to these problems rather than governmental involvement. There are plenty of organizations and people on the right that are concerned with the plight of the less fortunate but would rather invest their own time and money in the solution rather than looking for government solutions. With the limited funds available the private organizations have to be more creative and seek longer term results. Several years ago, when I lived in another country, and worked with an ethnic minority it was anounced that the Government put $15,000 per family into the department that was supposed to help this minority but only $3,500 actually got to the family because the bureacracy ate up $11,500. The department people were supposedly concerned for the welfare of their charges but in 12 years I never saw one out on the ground actually working with the people. This is the type thing that makes me a die-hard conservative. I was there on the ground pouring my life into those people and not receiving one cent for the effort. To me this liberal feel good stuff is a complete travesty. They always want somebody else's money to alleviate the problem or someone else to be paid to go and teach the less fortunate to "fish for themselves". If they can get that other money or people to go then they feel good about themselves for having cared.
 
Doubter,

I do like the teach a kid to fish idea. But there are several reasons that I can't lean with the right on this. (And to save space the waste of resources pisses me off as well.:eek: )

If you take something like the foster care system in this country which is largely state run, with federal funding supplements, it is deplorable at best. At any one time there are 1/2 a million kids being processed in the system. Most if not all of these kids would be treated with Medicaid and other social programs for their various needs. In this pool there are about 100K that are up for adoption, about 8 years old, and probably on Welfare of some sort.

Now, in my mind the private industry solution to this problem is adoption of these children in to loving homes. Last I checked there were about 50,000 adoptions a year. (As an aside some of the adoption laws probably need changed.) And just recently I have seen a few ads about adoption on TV, so it is a start.

In theory these kids get adopted, they come off the welfare rolls and get good care. But, this has not happened, nor do I see it happening any time soon.

Then you have the moral question of what if a couple is willing to adopt a child, but needs help with the healthcare costs. I would submit it is probably better to use some tax dollars to fund the healthcare than to leave them in the current system.

I would see the private citizen solution as feel-good for the right. There may be some happy balance, but business and individuals have personal interests at the for-front, with social issues a distant second. unfortunately absent of perfect behavior, there is not a solution I see other than some tax and government involvement.
 
Quote from Doubter:

Until recently I hadn't thought about the banning of DDT and I had used it many years ago. Recently an article related the EPA decision to ban its' use and how the director completely ignored science and banned it because of political pressure. Now it seems that the worries were not justified but in 3rd world countries where malaria is a major problem literally hundred of thousands have died that didn't need to because of our excessive regulation. There needs to be a balance with safety and yet not killing people because of ideology.
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There just is no science involved in a lot of environmental and safety issues, only hysteria. One really revealing case of that is illustrated by what happened in California a few years ago. Environmental attorneys started a scare story about gasoline stations' tanks polluting drinking water. Legislators mandated that all the tanks had to pretty muchly be replaced. The cost of that averaged $450,000, had to be done by specialists licensed by the state, and it put all the independent dealers out of business. Guess what? After all that was done, the oil companies were the winners because the competition was reduced and gas prices went up. Then some real scientists did some real analysis and found out that gasoline is made inert by mother nature after it seeps only 25 feet from a tank and possibly only one drinking water source in the state was actually in danger and they were not sure about that because the offending tank was gone by that time.

That is just the way it is, I can't really take the public sector seriously about anything, especially in California nowadays. I am hoping to own a few politicians of my own in my old age however.
 
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