Healthy family life confers unfair advantage, claim lefty philosophers

[Ricter]

When we talk about the poor's challenges, it's all about character, but when we talk about the challenges the rich face, it's all about government.

 

[Ricter]

I dunno, the last 240 or so years of this country weren't nightmarish.

A fact you would do well to recall more often.

 

[Tsing Tao]

A fact you would do well to recall more often.

How so? I have issues about what is happening today - what has happened recently. Stop making up shit.

 

[Tsing Tao]

When we talk about the poor's challenges, it's all about character, but when we talk about the challenges the rich face, it's all about government.

Wrong. The government is a problem to both rich and poor. What you call "solutions" (welfare, etc) are traps for the poor. They help in the short term, not the long (like Loyek said).

 

[Ricter]

Wrong. The government is a problem to both rich and poor. What you call "solutions" (welfare, etc) are traps for the poor. They help in the short term, not the long (like Loyek said).

Wrong, government is a necessity, and there is nothing wrong with that. The social safety net is not a trap, as evidenced by all who have recently benefited by it and stepped out of it. We will always have government (and central banking ; ) everywhere and always.

 

[Tsing Tao]

Wrong, government is a necessity, and there is nothing wrong with that. The social safety net is not a trap, as evidenced by all who have recently benefited by it and stepped out of it. We will always have government (and central banking ; ) everywhere and always.

Government is a necessity in certain parts of it's existence. Not in the monstrosity it has become or is on it's way to (the Nanny state).

Please post the statistics behind "those who have stepped out of it" vs. "those on it". You know, to back up your statement.

 

[Ricter]

Government is a necessity in certain parts of it's existence. Not in the monstrosity it has become or is on it's way to (the Nanny state).

Please post the statistics behind "those who have stepped out of it" vs. "those on it". You know, to back up your statement.

In your opinion. In my opinion government in its present state is not a "monstrosity" (lol), certainly not a nanny-state.

You want proof that fewer people are getting food stamps and such today, than were at the depth of the GR?

 

[fhl]

Adam Swift and Harry Brighouse are most likely queers who are reaching for excuses to do away with the family unit.

 

[CaptainObvious]

It's important to remember that both sets of parents, the virtuous and the contemptible, are not equally situated financially or educationally. That's the point. Small (much less large) differences in starting conditions lead to large differences in later conditions. So we intervene if we don't want to live a Hobbesian nightmare.

How do we avoid the Hobbesian nightmare while at the same time growing an ever more intrusive government? The all powerful government makes the nightmare all the more likely.
Hobbes was correct in his thinking than man will never truly trust other men, but was wrong in thinking an all powerful government is the answer. The left is wrong in their thinking that we can somehow stop the natural order of things and "level the playing field". That's not possible and does not exist anywhere in nature. Everybody can't be at the top of the heap and those at or near the top sure as hell aren't stepping down just to play nice. The best we can do is provide equal opportunity for those deserving individuals rising through the ranks. Deserving being the operative word. We must also accept the fact that equal opportunity does not guarantee equal outcomes.

 

[Ricter]

How do we avoid the Hobbesian nightmare while at the same time growing an ever more intrusive government? The all powerful government makes the nightmare all the more likely.
Hobbes was correct in his thinking than man will never truly trust other men, but was wrong in thinking an all powerful government is the answer. The left is wrong in their thinking that we can somehow stop the natural order of things and "level the playing field". That's not possible and does not exist anywhere in nature. Everybody can't be at the top of the heap and those at or near the top sure as hell aren't stepping down just to play nice. The best we can do is provide equal opportunity for those deserving individuals rising through the ranks. Deserving being the operative word. We must also accept the fact that equal opportunity does not guarantee equal outcomes.

Much truth in that. It's about mitigation, not elimination. Do we have equal opportunity? That's the question, and the answer is increasingly, no.