Haha.... Don't you call me that dirty word.... But for real, both my folks are WAY left. My Dad worked in DC most of his life. My brother is a bleeding heart liberal. My sister is a lesbian, married to a Jamacain woman, so take a wild guess how that ended up politically..... So yeah, we are all products of our environment. But trust me, I spent quite a few years all around the inner city and it was that time in my life that truly showed me how broken the system is a and seeing it all first hand leads me to where I am today. There is a large portion of this country that has no intentions and will never have any intentions to contribute to society at all. And for those people, I got a phat d(ck and bubble gum. Excuse me that I work, and take care of my family and don't let my kids run around in the streets and start selling crack by age 8....
^ and this too. It's all smoke and mirrors. Which is why everybody sucks and we just have to hope for the lesser of two evils every 4 years...... But, I know a bunch of surfers would typically be on the left side of things (I think), but I am not alone here. Take a look at the mid-term election map from Tuesday.... You will be blinded by a sea of red. This was the first time this has happened in such a shift since WWII.... So even the left is unhappy with the left and it takes a LOT OF BS to get a liberal to admit that.... America has spoken, and more people than not, feel like this guy.
Pimps been pimpin long before there were black pimps by the way. And black pimps are NOT lazy. Pimps of all colors are hard working folks, and actually contribute to society. Just wish they could be taxed. And Lazy sees no color. Neither does ignorant.
And if any of you have about 5 minutes, this is an interesting article. And it discussed the elephant in the room about race and the GOP and it tries to discuss how there is a HUGE portion of the black and minority voting community that is actually on board with the GOPs general outlook on the economy. They are talking about snatching up 1/3 of the liberal black voters, because they realize the same problems as the rest of us, and they are also letting go of the racial stereotypes of parties, that are not always true anymore. It's a decent read. http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/05/opinion/granderson-mia-love-victory/index.html?hpt=hp_t3 It basically says, it's ok to be black and vote for what is right in our country. It's not about alientating your own race, its about doing what is right for our society. It means, that if you live well, work hard and contribute to society, you MAY want to reconsider who's side you are really on. Because EVERYONE thinks that the past 6 years has been a strike out, no matter your skin color.
Not meaning to offend but the facts are Dems and repubs are both bought and paid for by by big business, oil, pharma ect. Drill baby drill, bomb baby bomb, go to sleep good little sheep.
Zach, I get where you're coming from, but one thing that's always confused me about Libertarians. There seems to be a focus on poor folks who don't work as the "main reason" or the "cause" for all of these "high taxes". I guess the idea is that we, as a society, should not pay (reward) people who don't work. Now that seems like a pretty reasonable idea. I think that focus on "welfare for the poor" misses the mark though for a couple of reasons. First of all, let me get this out of the way, welfare is mostly for white people: African-Americans, who make up 22 percent of the poor, receive 14 percent of government benefits, close to their 12 percent population share. White non-Hispanics, who make up 42 percent of the poor, receive 69 percent of government benefits – again, much closer to their 64 percent population share. Welfare is also mostly for old people and the disabled: The study found that older people received slightly more than half of government benefits, while the nonelderly with disabilities received an additional 20 percent. Most of these benefits are not means-tested – indeed, better-paid workers get more in Social Security. The idea that the gubmint hands out boatloads of your money to shiftless, lazy poor folks isn't really supported by the facts. Most of that money these days goes to old folks, people who are disabled (or act disabled because they live in coal country and there ain't no more jobs), and the working poor. You should probably read this - http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/who-benefits-from-the-safety-net/?_r=0 But let's get back to those pesky poor people. Libertarians say "get a job". The jobs went to China, and they're not coming back. Libs say "create a job". That's hard to do without capital or credit - both of which are hard to come by without a job. Not impossible, just incredibly difficult. Not to mention, it is very difficult to compete or break into existing industries even small ones because of regulation. You know who likes regulation the most? Established businesses. Why? Because it is a barrier to entry for businesses that do not require much capital. Ever wonder why hairdressers need a license that costs a few thousand to obtain? All the other hairdressers... It is the same for every other industry. Which brings us to corporations... Libertarians seem to think that there's a paradise awaiting if only we could get rid of all the damn regulation. The "market forces" will provide all the regulation necessary - as if capitalism were a self-regulating machine. Even capitalists don't believe this. Capitalism is essentially a system of trust encoded in law and enforced by a third party outside the marketplace. I don't really want to go into it here - it would take a whole semester to explain even the basic concept. Just look up monopoly and tragedy of the commons to understand why unregulated capitalism isn't a system that would well serve any human society that valued its own survival. Do you know why I can trust getting on an airplane, feeding my kid with Gerber's, and walking into a newly built building? Regulations. Some company going out of business or ruining their "reputation" won't bring back the dead or pay back the economic costs of death and disability not to mention the environmental destruction that can last for generations. There are so many obvious examples throughout history where unregulated self-interest leads directly to death and destruction both to humans, animals, and ecosystems that I am hard pressed to understand why this "ideal" survives even a cursory examination. As with most things, a lack of imagination, seems the easiest explanation. Just think through what the world would really look like with this many people and any radical de-regulation. It would be a Hobbesian nightmare for you and your family.
Forget the poor folks - they aren't your problem. There has already been a radical de-regulation of the financial markets over the last 30 years, and it has lead to the creation of an extremely powerful, extremely wealthy class of people who year after year quietly snip away our freedoms and opportunities so that they can continue their reign (and pass it on to their progeny). You say - what have the poor done for me lately (besides served you fast food or checked you out at Walmart you mean?) You should be asking what have the rich done. They have vastly more resources available to them - and they don't seem to do anything at ALL for the rest of us. Crumbling schools, roads, bridges. They are pretty good at creating a feeding trough for themselves though - see Oil subsidies, current corporate tax laws and shelters, the commodities and futures modernization act, the repeal of glass-steagall, the carried interest tax loophole, the cut in capital investment income, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum. And still you talk about how poor people are screwing you out of money. Hilarious. Who do you think picks up the slack when a hedge fund billionaire pays 15% on his 500 million in yearly income? You do. I do. Have you ever seen a graph of income distribution by percentile over the last 30 years? Given how much of the pie the "job creators" have been scarfing up (you do know that taxes have been going DOWN for the .1% and .01% right?) we should be up to our necks in jobs. But we're not. They created those jobs in China (and get tax breaks for that too). This one shows top 1% - you should look for the graphs that include .1% and .01% - it is mind blowing. http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/20111029_WOC689.gif By the way, corporations are not people. They don't have the same responsibilities (they can't be conscripted), legal constraints (they can't go to jail) or social obligations (their mothers and wives won't dis-own them) that people do, and as a result, they should not enjoy the same freedoms as humans. Anyway - I could go on and on and you've probably checked out. In summary, Libertarians are either people who still think we still live in a wilderness with very few people and very little real infrastructure to support, or they are like the Koch brothers pulling the real money, pulling the strings, and trying to stay in power. Either way, Libertarians don't seem to actually want to live a society where we all care about each other. If you say you're a libertarian I pretty much know you don't care about what happens to me and mine. In my opinion, that's a myopic, desolate and ultimately unsustainable way to view the world.
Liberals want to make you a slave to the government. Conservatives want to make you a slave to corporations. Libertarians want you to be able to live your life the way you see fit. That is the most caring and generous gift you could ever get. Your own personal freedom.
The thing is - you guys don't even actually believe that. You don't believe that unfettered personal freedom is the ultimate good. You believe just like the rest of us that there should be rules of human conduct within a society and consequences for transgression of those rules. I assume you would agree that murder is intolerable and should be punished. (If you don't, then you are not even an anarchist, you're a nihilist / sociopath - or a bull****ter. Bull****ter is worse.) If you do agree that murder should be proscribed then you already agree that there should be rules (or at least one) governing human interactions. Let's call those rules (or at least that one), the Law. So, now we've just established that you don't hold "your own personal freedom" above the Law. If you agree to that concept, then we're just talking about degrees. How many laws should there be? Just one? How about rape. OK two. How about if I decide to follow you to every surf break you ever surf, and dredge it. OK three. And so on. All this stuff about "personal freedom" works as long as you forget that you actually live in a society crammed full with other "persons" all trying to exercise their "freedoms". A society that does not try to regulate to some extent all of those free choices so that they impinge minimally on the freedoms of others ends up with the most powerful having the most freedom and the least powerful with the least. You might counter, that you're only talking about personal choices that only affect you (and presumably your family). Hey, I'm with you on that for the most part. I think where Libertarians get into trouble in that line of thinking is they fail to realize (again a lack of imagination) that there's very little you can do in a highly structured, technologically advanced, densely populated world that does not affect (and probably impinge) on the freedoms of others. Again - just on the personal level, if some douche started building a high rise on your break and started tossing concrete chunks into the surf cause he didn't want his investment washed away - you'd probably feel like your freedoms were being diminished. If you shot the douche, he (and his family) would probably think that you'd impinged quite dramatically on his "personal freedom". Fortunately, we have rules governing just this kind of behavior, and I'm guessing you're in favor of them for preventing exactly the kind of mayhem described above. So I guess I just don't buy it. Libertarians always say just get rid of the rules and everything will be better. But you point out a few rules that are good and they're like - oh yeah, well let's keep those ones. They're pretty good. Man, if that's the case, then we're just down to arguing which rules are good and which ones are bad. But that's not some radical f88king Libertarian revelation. Arguing about the "rules" and which ones are the right ones is all we've been doing since this whole thing (civilization) got started.
There is a middle ground between tracking iphone spy tax slave orwellian wet dream and chaos people can voluntarily form organizations. self organized groups to protect against agression. I do agree that some sort of court/contract enforcement entity may be a needed evil, but power always tends to metathesizes. whatcha gonna do?
I appreciate the appropriate response. Let me be clear here. This isn't an issue of race. I am aware that there are far more "white" people living off the welfare system. That makes sense just off general population. But there are other factors that are not mentioned. Prison. Incarceration. The cost of all this. School being shut down because parents don't send their kids to school. Truancy officers scooping kids up once a semester and forcing them into class for attendance purposes so schools don't completely lose their funding. My issues aren't with the kids. Its with irresponsible adults and parents. Here is a simple concept: If you have a child over the age of 4 and under the age of 16, and they don't attend school 95% of the time, you don't get ANY welfare. There are not enough checks and balances, and people, white or black get trapped in a system that isn't designed to let them out. If they go work at McDonaldss for 9$ per hour they might make JUST enough money to disqualify them from all these programs, and then they will be belly up, not being able to support their families. And you hit the nail on the head with "The Rich".... But just like everyone else in this country, if you look UP, waiting for a trickle down, you are going to die with a sore neck. All I ask for is what I am worth. I want what my efforts and my services are worth, like any other person..... And again, while I agree that a billionare should pay the same 30% I do, I also don't agree with penalize people for success. So, I would be fine with a flat tax rate. Again, my example here has always been health care. This utopian society with universal health care will never happen. It just needs to stay the way it was. If you are in labor and show up at a hospital with no insurance, they WILL deliver your baby. You show up to the ER with a gunshot wound and no way to pay, they WILL fix you up. That is the way it has always been. What is so wrong with that? Forcing 21 year olds to pay hundreds of dollars in penalties, or buy into a system they don't want, I have a BIG problem with that.... This is supposed to be a free country, and if you want to take that gamble, and live the rest of your life in medical debt because you choose to do so, that is on you. The president of the united states should not force a socialized system on anyone.
