WA, if the government had a program to help those who couldn't take care of their elderly, I wouldn't have a problem with it. The problem lies with all of the people who chose not to take care of their own. They don't want to give up any amenities, not necessitties, amenities. And since when is it an American right to have prescription drugs paid for?

You talk about us not having a Democracy then say we need to remove the incentive for money. I think you have communism and democracy confused. If we make it so we just distribute everything "fairly", there will be no incentive for anyone to do any more than anyone else. It is a very basic concept. You talk about us needing to strive for more liesure time. Americans have plenty of liesure time. Look at how much time so many of us have to be here on JoeUser debating

Brad, I'm not declaring myself loyal to the British, I'm merely stating that the Revolutionary war was not about taxes.

I would like to say that when it all said and done what happens when you CAN'T afford to pay for that health care? What happens when you can not take care of your parents? What happans if you don't have the money to take care of yourself?

How many people don't have money to take care of themselves or their parents? Very very few. Every time I meet someone who claims they are poor they somehow manage to have a car, a house (rarely an apartment), cable, Internet, computer, well fed, and typically an out-of-state vacation per year.

But that's ultimately irrelevant - free pills are NOT an entitlement. They're not a right.  And very very few people truly can't afford it themselves. They just don't want to go without something else to pay for it.

I am sure you have to oppose the minimum wage as well, believing the market should determine wage levels, correct? Now if we have 20 million ILLEGAL Aliens (note the word ILLEGAL) willing to take American jobs IF Bush let's them become LEGAL Aliens by it, what does this do to American wage pressures? WHY BRAD?

I am a big believer in the rights of workers to organize. Unions were not made by the government. It wasn't minimum wage laws that made companies stop exploiting the workers. It was unions. Part of the free market.

Illegal aliens will push down the average wages. Hence one of many reasons why they are ILLEGAL.

Regarding how our government isn't a democracy and how it needs to get back to the principles of our founding fathers.  Yea, those were the days. When only white males who owned land could vote and there was no income tax. When elected officials were literally in the pocket of some rich individual.  Yea, that was democracy. Not like now.

Just a point: I don't plan to vote for Bush. So don't confuse me for a Bush supporter. I'm a conservative, not necessarily a died in the wool Republican.

My princples are pretty straight forward: Self-Reliance. Don't ask the government to do things for you. Everything the government touches becomes corrupt and ultimately robs people of their rights and dignity. The best solution for that is to keep them the hell away from our daily lives. And if you are convinced that something needs to be done by a tax funded entity, look to your local or state government.

Brad, I'm not declaring myself loyal to the British, I'm merely stating that the Revolutionary war was not about taxes.

You don't recall "Taxation without representation"? Boston Tea Party? Believe it or not, there are these things called history books. Here's a tip: Books with titles like "Lies my Teacher Told me" and "A People's history of the United States" are not history books (those are the only two books that bring up the revolutionary war that i've read that have tried to argue that it was really a war for rich people).

::laughs:: As an adjunct professor of history, I have read things other than those two books, or books of similar titles. No taxation without representation were good rallying cries, but were not, ultimately, the cause of the Revolutionary war.

Please enlighten us about what the real cause of the Revolutionary war was.

A series of events. Though taxes played a role in exciting the masses, it was also due to the fact that the British were limiting expansion westward, the reduction and elimination of the powers of the New England Commonwealth, the cooling attitudes toward slavery in the British empire, shall I go on Jill?

Cheers

I'm not going to argue that taxes caused the Revolutionary War, but judging by this document, it does seem that it was definitely one of the many reasons for the Revolutionary War.

::laughs:: As an adjunct professor of history, I have read things other than those two books, or books of similar titles. No taxation without representation were good rallying cries, but were not, ultimately, the cause of the Revolutionary war.

Please feel free to educate us peasants with the real, super-secret cause of the revolutionary war.

My reading of it has been that while taxes weren't the exclusive reason, they were certainly a major issue. That if we (the colonists) were going to be getting taxed then we should have some say with the mother country.

I brought up my eighty nine year old mother as an example. My family does take care of her. We don't expect others to care for her--but it is outrageous the cost of medicines in the United States. However, my brother also takes care of his mother in law, and my husband and I have two daughters with a chronic illness. Fortunately we have good jobs and are not unemployed. But no one is self-sufficient. Even Bill Gates is dependent on having good quality employees. Saying you are self-sufficient means that you do not consider all the benefits you receive in this country. My mother is still living on her savings, but because she lives in a Christian retirement home, she benefits from the care of many Lutherans who built that home.

I never said that we have to be self-sufficient. Just self-reliant. A crucial difference.  Bill Gates is Self-Reliant -- he can afford good employees.

How do you know medicine costs too much? Compared to what? Having the latest/greatest in any field is going to be expensive. Plasma TVs are "outrageously" expensive too. Why? Because they're the latest/greatest technology.  The problem is that Americans seem to demand the latest/greatest in medical technology but unlike every other market, don't expect to have to pay a premium to obtain it.

Expecting others to pay for someone's demand to have the latest/greatest medical technology is not reasonable. If you can afford it for your mother, that's fine. But why should you be forced to give charity to someone thousands of miles away? If you choose to do that, that's your business but the federal government doesn't have the right to coerce you to do that. 

Tying this into the revolutionary war sub-plot, Americans want to be free.  Having some person tell them how they have to spend their money is not freedom, it's slavery.  The average working American already spends months in slavery to the federal government. I don't want to work more months for it so that some politician can make themselves look like they're generous.

Americans in 1933 only lived 58 years old on average.  In 2003 they lived to 80 on average. That's 22 more years of life. That's pretty cool.  But at the same time if those people living to 80 or 90 want to have the latest medical technology available to them they need to pay for it themselves, not expect everyone else to do it for them. After all, when that same 90 year old was 20 it was 1933 and they certainly weren't being asked to hand over massive amounts of their hard earned money to support people living 90 years.

Charities exist for a reason. The federal government is not a charity. That's nowt what it was designed to do.

The difference between Bush and the elderly is that Bush pays his employees for their service while the elderly don't. If the elderly were to earn their keep, rather than burdening today's generations so that today's generations must then burden the future generations and creating a cycle, then I'm sure nobody would complain.

Please allow me to say someting for these elderly. They once all but ruled the world, and EARNED it. They're not heavy, they're our fathers and mothers, our friends, our neighbors, and our fellow-Countrymen. If one was so graced, some were even our role models and stand as amongst our greatest of heroes.
They saved, didn't borrow, and survived economic times that made some fall from office builidings. They gave us the pride in owning a "made in America" product, do you remember that?
Forget any discussion on such an issue. I say that as sure as veterans can get a free bus ride, or a loaf of bread, these 'elderly' will have the decent rest they've earned regardless of cost - from a spoiled generation. If that's not enough, then because WE owe THEM that. (This should be an edict of the definition of our national character). O.K.?

This might sound age-ist of me, but I have a feeling that most elderly people led lives as normal as anybody else of today's generations. I don't buy into the belief that the elderly are all some sort of super generation that as some news anchors might call "the greatest generation ever." I always thought that most were normal human beings with nothing heroic or veteran about them. Also, if they saved so well, then why don't they use their savings to support themselves?

Some of Bushes domestic agenda has definitely become astonishing.
Bush began to capture my attention as a “liberal” spender when he allocated 10 billion dollars to an insurmountable and impossible challenge of saving Africa from the plague of AIDS, that was my first eyebrow rising moment, Bush has just recently jumped over the edge by donating 18 million dollars to the NEA. The first lady Laura Bush made the announcement, "American arts are a reflection of our history and the creativity of the human spirit."

Sen. Mc Cain and his Mc Cainiacs are right; these guys are spending like “drunken sailors.” I think Bush needs to reign in all the spending, especially on something as ridiculous as the NEA, I don’t think the government should fund an entity that allows “artists” to display crosses in urine, or the virgin Mary splattered with feces, that is not art, that is a hateful attack on religion, therefore the government should not fund this institution. I will vote for Bush irregardless of the spending because under Kerry things would be a lot worse, as a decorated Vietnam veteran, Kerry will be a tough challenge for Bush in the general election, Kerry’s policies are suicidal, he would virtually turn our system into a command economy, Kerry is so dangerous that he even had Iowa veterans cheering and applauding their own destruction. Kerry's Intent is to create a Marxist concept of a classless society where all contribute according to their ability and receive benefits according to their needs. He would then turn over the reigns of our national security to an international entity, the UN.

Reply #29 By: Brad Wardell - 1/30/2004 11:48:25 AM Just a point: I don't plan to vote for Bush. So don't confuse me for a Bush supporter. I'm a conservative, not necessarily a died in the wool Republican.

Then you are voting Democrat, you are voting for Kerry?
If you are voting for a libertarian or independent, it is just a vote for someone in the two party systems, just as a vote for Perot was a vote for Clinton, and just as a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush. If you vote outside the two parties you are basically siphoning off votes from the candidates that actually will be voted into office.

My reading of it has been that while taxes weren't the exclusive reason, they were certainly a major issue

Now, if my reading Howard Zinn, who is by the way a highly respected historian, is inadmissable, surely a high school history text book is inadmissable. It was, just as it is now, all about spin. The taxes affected a very small percentage of the American colonists, then, like now, people were able to use the idea of taxes to rally the mob, after all, and I admit I'm being snide here, the Republicans do it everytime they get a poor person to vote for them. So, this nation was not founded on the idea of freedom from taxes, since one of the first things the government did under the constitution was enact a national income tax, which, in the interests of fairness to both sides, was struck down as unconstitutional. However, it does say something that the US passed an amendment to allow an income tax, but has consistently failed to pass one banning flag burning. If Republicans are truely against taxes, why not pass an amendment getting rid of it? After all, less than a century ago we had no income tax.

Cheers

I highly doubt that Howard Zinn knows more about the Revoluntionary War than those who fought in it, and the failure to differentiate between taxes without representation and taxes with representation doesn't help. Of course, if he has some evidence of this Evil Mason Conspiracy that proves all the documents of those times are lies, then I'll accept it.

I am not sure I understand what is going on with are our goverment right now, and I am not sure I ever will. Something is corrupt and something is not right. We can't even help ourselves out enough to keep 100s of 1000s of poor people off the streets that live right here in the good old United States, but yet it is okay to spend billions of dollars to over turn another goverment because they are a threat. What if these 100s of 1000s poor people caused a threat to our goverment what would we do with them? Hurt them or help them?
Since when is there such a bias on age in the United States? If you are under 18 you are considered a child. If a parent can not support a child the goverment will figure out a way to help the child. What about the Elderly? If you are over 65 you are elderly. If your children can not support you and you can not support yourself you do not get turned over to some goverment agency to help you. You die. In a country that people live to be 100 shouldn't we try to help all people that need it?
"The United States doesn't have enough money to fund everything it would like." I wish more people would understand that. Its just like people. We don't have enough money/time to do everything we want. So we elect people to make the right decisions for us, but wait a minute, we did not elect Bush a system did. Why doesn't he use that as a campaign slogan "You didn't elect me the first time, so I screwed you.. Maybe if you elect me this time, I won't."
I don't think anyone knows whats more important. Between endless debates about gun control, education, and healthcare I don't know what I believe anymore.
There is also something else I don't understand. Bush is all about helping nations rebuild, but he isn't helping our nation. I believe he is right that we need to help people, but I think he is just a little confused on who.
"Goverment that governs least, governs best." I think our goverment just has way too much on its plate.

Wahkonta Anathema  : You are apparently not familiar with the fact that veterans of foreign wars already get the kinds of medical benefits you are currently advocating for everyone else.

I highly doubt that Howard Zinn knows more about the Revoluntionary War than those who fought in it

Ahhah! So, we have with us in this honored assemblage a genuine veteran of the Revolutionary War!

Thanks Messy Buu for clearing that up

Cheers

I just think the words of those who actually lived during those times carry more weight than a historian born centuries later, just like somebody in the Holocaust probably knows more about it than someone born after it was all over, even if that someone had a PhD.

I concur, how many first hand accounts have you read about the revolutionary war? and how many do you think Howard Zinn has read? We historians, even those of us with PhDs do read primary sources. If all you've done is read history books that cite these primary sources, then you do no better than someone who's read Dr. Zinn. You've actually done worse than Dr. Zinn however, so think about it.

Cheers

Even those woth PhDs can have biases, which is why I'm highly suspicious of these claims that the grievances listed in the Declaration of Independence weren't the real reasons for the war. This is also the first time I've heard it in my life, and it's not as if those other sources I've read were glorifying our founding fathers, what with mentioning their love for slavery and love for slave mistresses. Until I see some evidence of this, it sounds like another conspiracy theory to me.