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  • Posted by khalling 10 years, 7 months ago
    I am always amazed at the arrogance of these people. What does my personal healthcare have to do with them needing to fix it? Why does "fixing" the poverty problem always involve "fixing" my stuff too? Mr. Pence, take your hand out of your constituents' pockets and leave them alone
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  • Posted by Herb7734 10 years, 7 months ago
    re: Pence.
    "The reasons are more pragmatic..."
    "In the whirling Heraclitian flux which is the pragmatist's universe, there are no absolutes. There are no facts, no fixed laws of logic, no certainty, no objectivity." -- Leonard Peikoff
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  • Posted by Kath 10 years, 7 months ago
    How does stealing money to distribute as you like make you a conservative? I'd admire him if he continued to refuse it. This is politics, though. Believing that YOU can spend other people's money better than they can themselves. I bet he hasn't tried to find an individual medical policy lately. Maybe he'd be a little slower to take what isn't his to give to others.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 7 months ago
    Mike Pence used to be someone I thought I could support. What should we call the disease that makes people with spines become like mush when they go to Washington?
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    • Posted by khalling 10 years, 7 months ago
      power.
      I'm too jaded to be surprised. These politicians always underwhelm. There are only a few real leaders. They remain consistent .They do not compromise on foundations. That's difficult to do sometimes. Supporting liberty and freedom on one hand but not open borders, decriminalizing drugs, outlawing abortion on the other hand.
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  • Posted by TheOldMan 10 years, 7 months ago
    The problem with the "safety net" is that it is more akin to a spider's web than a trampoline. In the way back days, the "safety net" was provided by family, friends, religious and volunteer organizations. Did these always work? No. Do today's myriad of taxpayer programs always work? No. The difference is that the old ways did not look upon the unfortunate as meal tickets.
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    • Posted by 10 years, 7 months ago
      And the old ways were close to the needy, thus they were better able to ascertain the true need and the benefit provided and when they no longer had the need. Gov't programs are judged on how much is provided, not on whether that assistance did any good. Thus, we get more and more doled out, more and more that stay on the programs whether needed or not, and more and more fraud and abuse because nobody is accountable.
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  • Posted by Maphesdus 10 years, 7 months ago
    Best safety net for those starting out on life’s ladder: a low skill job at a factory without a minimum wage.

    I don't remember who said this, but there's a quote that goes, "Tell me how much you want to reduce teenage employment, and I will tell you exactly where to set the minimum wage."
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    • Posted by 10 years, 7 months ago
      Whoa, Maph. You're almost starting to sound rational.
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      • Posted by johnpe1 10 years, 7 months ago
        I was so good at mowing lawns when I was 12 that I made $5/hour, which was 4 times the minimum wage, in '61. that was my first job, and I couldn't handle the demand.

        McDonald's was just starting out, back then (Ray Kroc bought into it in '55.).

        neither mine nor theirs were supposed to be "living" wages. it wasn't until I got to the USAF, where I initially got $3.18/hour at age 22, that I got married. but my wife and I didn't estimate that we could afford a family, then -- too poor and too young. so, we waited. and waited.

        the 1st problem with "minimum wages", of course, is govt interference in private job contracts. the second is the abdication of personal responsibility -- you don't marry or have kids unless you can afford to do it.
        -- j
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      • Posted by Maphesdus 10 years, 7 months ago
        I've said before that I'm a Libertarian. Didn't you believe me?
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        • Posted by $ stargeezer 10 years, 7 months ago
          I could start listing points, but I'm just too tired to type that much tonight, there is nothing you can say that will undo months of liberal postings. So, let me just say NO, heck NO. Liberal, yes, libertarian, no, unless you think being 90% liberal, 5% socialist, 3% conservative and 2% that is just wild eyed fancy makes you a libertarian.

          But your not alone. Most people who want to call themselves libertarians are actually closet liberals - some come out of the closet and some show what they really are over time. In the end most lay all their hopes on that 5% bit of conservatism, hoping it will offset all the rest by labeling the whole as libertarian.

          Like a sinner hoping to slide into heave by going to church on Christmas and Easter, you hope you might have enough grace to slide by, but like that sinner, the scales just may find you lacking.
          .
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          • Posted by 10 years, 7 months ago
            Star, I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. I don't think that many liberals would call themselves libertarians. Progressives, yes.

            The difference between the left and the right as it pertains to libertarianism is that the left is so rabidly economic control that they cannot bring themselves to even consider economic liberty. Whilst the right tends to be more laizzes-faire when it comes to social controls. Yes there are some with a die-hard issue or two (abortion, marriage), but in the aggregate they are much more open to social liberty than not. Thus, you have the left who cannot stand economic liberty and the right that is kinda ambivalent overall on social liberty (given that the left is for social liberty and the right is for economic liberty). That's why you find more folks on the right who end up here and end up identifying with libertarian ideas than you do lefties.

            Just my hypothesis. You're free to agree or call it hogwash.
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            • Posted by $ stargeezer 10 years, 7 months ago
              OK, Hogwash. LOL. I meet a lot of self professed "libertarians" who, after a bit of discussion, I can find little more than one or two items that we can see eye to eye on. I'm not saying there are no true libertarians out there, not at all. I'm just saying that far too many liberals adopt the libertarian camouflage to go along or get along or some to just hide their true leanings, such as our friend maph.

              You also might disagree with me, but it's easy to be a libertarian, compared to either a conservative or a liberal. Each require a very definitive set of public standings that are rather ideologically pure. Libertarians tend to straddle the ditch on several key issues the others won't cross.

              Your list of such areas is far too short friend. Please allow me to expand it;
              Church and state separation
              gun control
              education (federal or local control)
              welfare
              veterans benefits (liberals lump this with welfare, conservatives will not)
              military force usage
              expanding federal gov. powers
              states rights issues
              EPA (and several other ABC depts.)
              and as you mentioned,
              marriage
              abortion

              There are many more where liberals find good camo as libertarians while being true liberals.

              I just find the true libertarian to be a very rare cat. They are out there and the real test is if I can openly speak to them for 15 minutes without their head (or mine) exploding from the strain. True libertarians and I can get along just fine (I just see them as backslid conservatives), but liberals who are hiding in the ranks WILL show their true colors in minutes and the fireworks begin. LOL

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              • Posted by 10 years, 7 months ago
                Might be a different mindset around where you are. I've just found that liberals shun the libertarian banner because they abhor some freedoms that that connotes, much more so than those on the right. But, as I say, where you are that might be different.

                As for your list, I'm not sure I know of any libertarians that would agree with any liberal position on those items, whilst many of the right would.
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  • Posted by wiggys 10 years, 7 months ago
    Pence is a despicable man. He just became a part of the problem. I have yet to be able to distinguish between a republican, democrat, conservative, liberal, libertarian, etc. they are what is commonly known as "birds of a feather".
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  • Posted by Notperfect 10 years, 6 months ago
    Because a Progressive says it is and that is the end of their story. No answers to the question just plain outright lies. Anything to improve their agenda.If they could tell the truth it might kill them so the Rino's follow suit.
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  • Posted by $ DriveTrain 10 years, 6 months ago
    Let no one say "Government caused this; eliminating government - totally - from medicine is the only answer."

    I would have a whole lot more hope that the semi-free world can pull out of this mess, if I could hear just one American politician propose that we a.) identify government-run medicine - in whatever form - as a textbook human rights violation, and b.) establish a complete separation of medicine and state on that moral basis.
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  • Posted by gtebbe 10 years, 7 months ago
    No conservative I know, myself included, considers big government as a solution to anything.
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    • Posted by 10 years, 7 months ago
      Ah, but there's the rub. There are those who call themselves conservatives who do. Look at this very thread - Mike Pence - and John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and too many others.
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      • Posted by gtebbe 10 years, 7 months ago
        I agree. It's important that others understand that difference. Neither Boehner nor any of the other big government republicans represent the views of their constituents, let alone the entire country's.
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  • -1
    Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 7 months ago
    How is having sex a form of birth control?

    This is a fun game, let's do more self-contradictory questions! :)
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    • Posted by 10 years, 7 months ago
      I'm not sure where you get that from the article?
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      • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 7 months ago
        And now for those wondering why I remain in Coventry, now you know.

        In the church of Objectivism, you can demonize Christianity, you can caricature conservatives, but don't you dare show the hypocrisy of Objectivists.

        A conservative, BY DEFINITION, does not support an *expansion* of government. Anyone who does, is not, BY DEFINITION, a conservative.

        This is the major schism between conservatives and Republicans in the Republican party.

        But, go ahead and downcheck me because I dare challenge the erroneous preconception among Objectivists that conservatives are just another brand of socialist.
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      • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 7 months ago
        expanding government is NOT a conservative solution.

        ergo, the question is self-contradictory. :)
        Check your premises. The article calls him a "conservative". I can call myself Queen of England, but I still won't get in to Buckingham Palace...
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    • Posted by Maphesdus 10 years, 7 months ago
      The article doesn't mention birth control...
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      • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 7 months ago
        *facepalm*.

        My comment was an example of a self-contradictory, nonsensical statements. Like the title of the post.

        Hence my comment, "This is a fun game, let's do more self-contradictory questions! :) "
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        • Posted by johnpe1 10 years, 7 months ago
          is there no aspect of that title, above, which you find sarcastic?
          and sex causes death, because it precedes it.
          making love, then, is a form of inverse birth control -- it causes birth, well, sometimes. "control" implies non-birth, which "varies", like the results of diet pills. -- j
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