patrick.net

Vicente says

mell says

The problem is thinking in conservatives vs democrats vs progressives vs liberals in the first place.

I used to use this line myself, back when I was Libertarian. It was just a COINCIDENCE that I always voted Republican, because you know I was INDEPENDENT and it just happend to work out straight GOP ticket.

Total BS now that I came to my senses. There are substantial differences, Republican Party these days takes hypocrisy and lies to such an extreme, they delude themselves that everyone else is the same.

I don't know how you can say that with an (assumed) straight face. Barack Obama as a Senator and presidential candidate back then sounds and acts like the exact opposite of him as a president and his administration:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/d3LZNc_TP_o

You were on the right track back then ;)

zzyzzx says

Dan8267 says

Every program you mentioned added up together does not cost as much as the warfare industry.

You must be bad at match. Add it state spending on welfare and it's easily several times defense spending:

Trust me. I'm far better at math than you are at spelling.

It's not the math where we conflict. It's the facts. The problem is you keep relying on Fox News and Republican lies.

Let's go over your claim...

So, according to Fox "News", welfare spending is over a trillion dollars and warfare spending is a "mere" 700 billion.

According to the U.S Government Printing Office (GPO)" data, Fox is outright lying. But first, since we are contradicting each other's "facts", I'll start with why my data source is a good one.

The GPO was created on March 4, 1861 for the sole purpose of publishing and dissemination services for the official and authentic government publications to Congress, Federal agencies, Federal depository libraries, and the American public. It has literally over 150 years of experience doing just that.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/aarQl3xAysw

Needless to say, the GPO is a far better source of government data than the highly partisan, completely unethical, and always lying Fox News.

The GPO data shows that 2013 Federal Spending for warfare is $0.9 trillion, while the spending for welfare is $0.4 trillion, less than half of warfare spending. Fox News both overstated welfare spending as 250% of the correct value! Fox Lies also understated warfare spending by nearly 25%!

A more specific breakdown of 2013 federal spending is shown below.

I've circled total warfare spending and total welfare spending for your convenience.

The site usgovernementspending.com, which provided these summaries, also states exactly where it got the data and lets you download it. Fox Propaganda will never do that.

So the question then becomes, why is the Fox statistics so wildly inaccurate and untruthful? Well, it turns out to be a deliberate lie crafted by the Republican Party. Yep, Senate Republicans are outright lying and Fox Misinformation is deliberately spreading that lie to all the stupid, stupid people who watch Fox News. And yes, the Fox News audience is motherfucking dumb. They are so dumb that even after reading this post, they'll still trust Fox News to deliver accurate and truthful information.

Hell, the last link even includes the same screenshot you posted, zzyzzx! Can you start acknowledging that Fox News is nothing but lies?

Some more references…
The GOP’s 1 Trillion Dollar Lie
Debunking Republican Lies about Welfare
A misleading chart on ‘welfare’ spending

Now don't think I'm advocating current welfare spending in this post. I'd cut welfare by at least 50% and replace most of the rest of it with workfare, but I'd cut warfare spending by 95% first. If you aren't jonesing to cut warfare spending by at least 80%, you aren't someone concerned with government spending, you're just a bigot who hates the poor.

Eliminate government pensions, dismantle the warfare industry, and reform the health care system and we can cut federal spending in half before even touching welfare.

JH says

Dan8267 says

JH says

These millennials living with mom and dad refuse to do anything with their history degrees that doesn't pay six figures.

And it's perfectly within their right to make that choice. They have invested so much time and effort into those degrees, it is perfectly sensible for them to demand a reasonable return in exchange for their skills.

You did notice the degree was "history", right?

Yes, and I stand by what I said even for history majors. However, I will clarify that I thought you deliberately were exaggerating when you said six figures and what you really meant was an above average income. I'm pretty sure that most history majors will be glad to have a $60k/yr job.

JH says

You are saying that wealth accumulated from 1995 to 2000 was real wealth?

Mine was. I built the Internet, along with a few tens of thousands of other programmers like me. How much wealth has the Internet created? A damn lot to be sure.

[And for those who say that the Internet was created in 1969, it wasn't. Darpanet was at best the precursor of the Internet, but it wasn't the Internet as we know it today. That was invented during the 1990s.]

JH says

Yes I agree completely with this. (And unfortunately Gen X can make the same argument vs. boomers.)

Agreed, but Gen X was not screwed over as badly as the Millennials. They got it a lot worse. And to be fair, Gen X was partly responsible for the housing bubble, not nearly as much as boomers, but somewhat.

JH says

But you are helping me make my point: millennials feel entitled to a certain level of job and refuse anything less. Just because "everyone else" fucked them over, they will refuse to work a lesser job? Sure in America they have a "right" to refuse to work, but that reeks of entitlement.

It is difficult to read another person's mind. I wouldn't presume that most Millennials think they have some birthright to a high paying and easy job. Nor would I conclude that because a person refuses a shitty, low paying job, they are being entitled. Life is about tradeoffs and sometimes the math says it just makes more sense to not take any low paying jobs. Yes, you don't get an income, but the quality of your life might still be higher since money isn't the only way to happiness. Sometimes it just makes sense to live life to the fullest while the economy recovers.

My impression of college degree holding Millennials -- assuming it's a real degree, not some b.s. one -- is that they did work at least as hard as Gen X and the Boomers, but when they entered the workforce the older generations broke the social contract. For their entire lives, Millennials were told to get a college degree or they'll be flipping burgers at McDonald's, and now those same people are bitching that the Millennials with college degrees won't take a job flipping burgers at McDonald's. It's hard to accept that refusal as a sense of entitlement.

I have more sympathy for the Millennials. The financial opportunity they are losing right now can never be made up for. I see them spending their free time enjoying their youth as much as they can as compensation for this loss. Although they might be poor, this could still be the best time of their lives. And this is coming from someone who worked 90 hours a week when he was 20 years old. I probably should have spent more time doing what the Millennials are doing.

SoftShell says

Full Definition of NEEDY

1: being in want : poverty-stricken

dead·beat noun \ˈded-ˌbēt\

1: a lazy person : a person who does not work

That's one of the problems with society today. Everybody wants to redefine words.

1. Those two definitions are not mutually exclusive.
2. Almost 100% of the population meets the definition of "lazy" you preented.
3. Your definition of needy provides no means testing.

This is why precise definitions are important when dealing with economics and government policy. The definition of "needy" for the purpose of receiving government aid should define specific, measurable, and verifiable means testing. Actually real government definitions in legislation do exactly that. For example, in order to receive section 8 vouchers, you must meet a certain set of specific criteria.

SoftShell says

Marriage use to mean a union of man and woman. Now you can mate with your canary under the term.

1. Marriage used to mean a hell of a lot of things.

2. You cannot marry a canary under any adopted or proposed marriage equality laws. As for mating with your canary, well, I wouldn't be surprised if you were size-appropriate for that.

3. Just because you want only men and women to have recognized marriages does not mean that there is any material secular difference between opposite-sex and same-sex marriages.

4. Marriage should never had been a legal institution. The state shouldn't be in the business of deciding which personal relationships are valid and which are not. The state should stay out of the bedroom.

5. Nonetheless, there are hundred of thousands of laws that use the word marriage in them. It is impossible to correct each law, and in fact, all such laws would be Unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment as determined in the Supreme Court case of Loving v. Virginia. Instead of immediately dispelling hundreds of thousands of laws and causing utter chaos on the federal, state, and local level, it makes much more sense simply to update the legal interpretation of the word marriage to include same-sex marriages.

6. Whether or not your stupid, incorrect, religious beliefs say that homosexually is bad is irrelevant to the state and secular law.

7. There is no legal justification to discriminate against homosexuals.

8. Homosexuality and bestiality are not the same thing. Suggesting that they are is both stupid and bigoted. As far as the state is concerned, marriage is a legal contract. You can enter a legal contract with both men and women. You cannot enter a legal contract with a canary. This difference is obvious to anyone who is not retarded, or a canary.

Finally, if you want to debate the legal or moral legitimacy of marriage, let's open a new thread. I'll take on anyone in this subject.

lostand confused says

Well that is part of how they were raised. If we live in a society that thinks everybody can go to college and can work white collar jobs

I do agree that Millennials were raised improperly in that they were given trophies for non-accomplishments. Their parents, mostly Boomers, thought that the only thing they needed to teach their kids in order to succeed was confidence. As a result, the Millennials, as a whole, had way too much false confidence.

However, I think that false confidence has already been shattered by the Second Great Depression. The Millennials are a lot more sober than they were in 2008.

zzyzzx says

A deadbeat is someone who is too lazy to work, or just doesn't pay their bills. A needy person has a real, verifiable physical or mental handicap preventing them from working.

That's a good start, but you still need a more precise criteria. For example, who gets to verify whether or not a person has a mental or physical handicap that prevents them from working? A doctor? A lawyer? A politician?

My vote would be for the doctor to decide. Remember that woman who had brain damage and couldn't form short-term memories. She'd suddenly not realize where she was or what she was doing? The bureaucrats said she could work as a security guard. Laughable.

freak80 says

Is a "liberal" anyone who gets their ideas from places other than Fox News? Or, god forbid, actually thinks for themselves?

A liberal is anyone who bases their view of reality on facts instead of whatever misinformation confirms their unquestionable ideology.

lostand confused says

A liberal is the conservative's boogeyman for all things wrong with this country. A conservative is the liberal's boogeyman for all things wrong with this country.

As a liberal, I won't say that conservatives are responsible for everything wrong with the country, just 80%. Leftist are responsible for 18% as well. The remaining 2% is all our fault.

dublin hillz says

The millenials predictably sense this weakness and exploit it to the fullest and feel entitled to free housing, free driver and free maid services. It is literally not just/fair to the parents to put up with this sort of burden at a time in their lives where they have fully earned to right to have some peace and privacy if they so choose.

I'm still not convince that the typical Millennial is staying at home out of a sense of entitlement or in order to take advantage of his or her parents. Unless the Millennials are totally different than every single generation that came before them, the typical Millennial, who is now between 13 and 33*, would gladly move out of his/her parents house if financially plausible because of the desire for privacy, freedom, and sexual liberation.

[* Generations are always fuzzily demarcated. I'm using 1980-2000 as the birth years for Millennials.]

Sure, there are bound to be some exceptions, but most young adults want their own place were they can drink, fuck, and chill out without parental supervision. It's not a coincident that the boomerang kid phenomenon coincided with both the Second Great Depression and the still-overinflated housing bubble. These are very real economic pressures that made it inevitable that many college graduates would be forced to move back home. If jobs were plentiful and housing expenses returned to normal, sane level, then I'd blame the Millennials, but not under these conditions.

At least the parents should be glad that their sons and daughters aren't shacking up with Boomers, trading sexual favors for a place to stay.

As for it not being fair, it's not really fair for the Millennials either. Hopefully, they will remember mom and dad's sacrifices when their parents reach old age and need to be taken care of.

Dan8267 says

lostand confused says

A liberal is the conservative's boogeyman for all things wrong with this country. A conservative is the liberal's boogeyman for all things wrong with this country.

As a liberal, I won't say that conservatives are responsible for everything wrong with the country, just 80%. Leftist are responsible for 18% as well. The remaining 2% is all our fault.

The vocabulary has been blurred nearly to incoherence. The neoconservatives who promote war all over the world are not really conservative, they spend every penny they can get on the military industrial complex in exchange for campaign finance. The neoliberals who insist on mandatory insurance (and now even bombing Syria) are not really liberal, they require everyone to spend every penny they can "afford" (with subsidies) on the medical industrial complex, in exchange for campaign finance. The "centrists" agree with both, in exchange for the most campaign finance of all.

Neoconservatives and neoliberals blaming each other are a sad spectacle, and they have less than three weeks left to sort out their differences on Capitol Hill and enact a CR to avoid partial government shutdown. Most people are too deluded or distracted or divided to see through it anyway, stuck in their "team left" vs "team right" fight fight fight false dichotomy.

I don't know how to resolve it. I like PatNet because it brings a mix of people who might not otherwise communicate at all, but I've seen that some (e.g. Bop69, Forthood, Homefool) are locked into their patterns for internal reasons and I don't see much hope. The millenials are perhaps the nicest generation, but they haven't been around long enough to see through the game.

Call it Crazy says

Liberals aren't allow to think for themselves. They must have the government tell them what to do....

Actually, liberals are rebels who mistrust the government and want to keep it under control, particularly by using transparency. That's why we liberals support the heroes Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning, and Julian Assange. We also believe there should be no victimless crimes, which means that government should not have the ability to "tell us what to do" when we're not hurting anyone. That's why we support marriage equality, legalization of pot, nudism, human cloning, flag burning, and free speech even when we venomously disagree with what is being said. That's also why we are against unwarranted searches, wiretapping, gag orders, strip searches, imprisonment before conviction unless a public safety threat can be firmly established, and not letting convicts vote.

But hey, don't let the fact that the truth is exactly the opposite of what you believe make you change those beliefs.

bob2356 says

Urban decay of the 60's was the result of white flight of the greatest generation to the suburbs combined with the mass movement of manufacturing to the south.

In Detroit and a few other places, yes, but not in New York City. Plenty of white folk there. And NYC doesn't have suburbs unless you include New Jersey, upstate New York, and Nassau County (which is pretty urban).

Dan8267 says

Actually, liberals are rebels who mistrust the government and want to keep it
under control, particularly by using transparency.

lmao .... hillarious

Bap33 says

Dan8267 says

Actually, liberals are rebels who mistrust the government and want to keep it

under control, particularly by using transparency.

lmao .... hillarious

Come on bap, you read enough of my posts to know that I strongly advocate transparency and accountability in government including criminal prosecutions of those who use governmental power to commit crimes.

Dan8267 says

For their entire lives, Millennials were told to get a college degree or they'll be flipping burgers at McDonald's, and now those same people are bitching that
the Millennials with college degrees won't take a job flipping burgers at McDonald's. It's hard to accept that refusal as a sense of entitlement.

True that!

Dan8267 says

My vote would be for the doctor to decide.

Problem is that it's easy enough to find enough doctors to sign your note for a cash payment.

Dan8267 says

I've circled total warfare spending and total welfare spending for your convenience.

Even if you are right, and I have my doubts about it since your source is a liberal one, you forgot to include how much of my state and local taxes go for local welfare programs.

zzyzzx says

Even if you are right, and I have my doubts about it since your source is a liberal one, you forgot to include how much of my state and local taxes go for local welfare programs.

It's easy to pick on the weak.

Who is it that's making your life miserable? The "welfare bums" or the sociopaths in the top 0.1%?

The violent crime wave is best correlated to demographics. When the Oldest Boomer passed 30, the crime wave dropped. That was the early 90s.

BTW, the prediction around 1990 was that Gen X would turn into "Superpredators" and violence would skyrocket. The opposite happened. The advocates kept trying to insist it was around the corner as crime continued to drop off steadily:

http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/superscapegoating/

As the article above tracks, the tougher sentencing wave happened AFTER crime started to decline. Private Prison booms happened AFTER crime started to decline.

"Community Policing" is often cited as the reason. It's nonsense, because Canada also had a crime drop about the same time; both the US and Canada have similar age demographics. The Canadians didn't build a shitload more prisons, toughen sentencing, or enact widespread "Community Policing" policies.

The decline is simple: Any country that has a large supply of young people disproportionate to the other age cohorts experiences crime waves, religious fanaticism, and other goodness. Note the Arab World has a massive youth bulge, and in Northern Ireland their babyboom coincided with a an increase in Orange and Catholic terror.

John Bailo says

3) Make each country liable for the actions and welfare of their citizens while abroad. So we would charge back Mexico for criminals, social services and so on, and make them pay from their oil money.

And how much is this going to cost when we have to send in an army to collect?

thunderlips11 says

The decline is simple: Any country that has a large supply of young people disproportionate to the other age cohorts experiences crime waves, religious fanaticism, and other goodness.

Makes sense. Old people are too weak/sickly to bust a cap in yo' a$$.

zzyzzx says

Dan8267 says

I've circled total warfare spending and total welfare spending for your convenience.

Even if you are right, and I have my doubts about it since your source is a liberal one, you forgot to include how much of my state and local taxes go for local welfare programs.

1. I am right. This is a matter of fact, not opinion. The data is verifiable.

2. The Government Printing Office is not a "liberal" source. It is completely nonpartisan and apolitical. And really? This is coming from a guy who quoted Fox News. 'Nuff said.

3. The data is a matter of public records.

4. The lie from Fox News that welfare spending is far larger than warfare spending is talking about federal spending, not state spending.

5. If you want to see state spending or total spending including federal/state/local, once again, you should go to my source as it spells out the spending precisely. And warfare spending is still more than welfare.

6. Most importantly of all...

There comes a point when the best thing you can do to save face is to simply admit that you were fooled by the lies of Fox News and demonstrate that you have learned something and won't listen to their lies anymore. To express doubt that the lie is really a lie, is to tell the world that you are still so stupid as to believe the lie even after it has been thoroughly exposed.

It's understandable to be fooled by lying "journalists" once or even a few times. But you look retarded if you keep getting fooled by the same damn liars even though their lies have been exposed in such a painfully obvious manner.

So show the world that you are not retarded by boldly claiming: Fox News lied to me, and I fell for it. But now I am on to their manipulation, and I will not listen to their lies anymore!

That would make you look respectable.

edvard2 says

If there were anyone who 'should' be complaining about taxes, it should be me because about 30% of my income goes to paying taxes while I can almost guarantee a lot of those complaining about taxes are either paying very little, or no taxes at all.

I pay way more then 30% of my income to taxes. 30% might just cover federal income taxes for me.

zzyzzx says

I pay way more then 30% of my income to taxes. 30% might just cover federal income taxes for me.

And Warren Buffett pays a much lower %. Why do you think that is?

freak80 says

And Warren Buffett pays a much lower %. Why do you think that is?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett

Buffett stated that he only paid 19% of his income for 2006 ($48.1 million) in total federal taxes (due to their being from dividends & capital gains), while his employees paid 33% of theirs, despite making much less money.

Actually I thought that his % was much lower because of income from tax free municipal bonds. Perhaps I was confusing him with someone else???

zzyzzx says

Buffett stated that he only paid 19% of his income for 2006 ($48.1 million) in total federal taxes (due to their being from dividends & capital gains), while his employees paid 33% of theirs, despite making much less
money.

So you acknowledge that Buffett is paying a significantly lower tax rate than you are?

freak80 says

So you acknowledge that Buffett is paying a significantly lower tax rate than you are?

Yes, of course!

Dan8267 says

5. If you want to see state spending or total spending including federal/state/local, once again, you should go to my source as it spells out the spending precisely. And warfare spending is still more than welfare.

Using your chart, welfare is 19 + 9 = 28% welfare, and only 13% for defense. And this is only at the federal level. At the state level there is almost no defense spending and boatloads of welfare spending. I'm sure that Obamaphones aren't in the welfare section of your pie chart either.

zzyzzx says

Yes, of course!

So who are the freeloaders? The "welfare bums"? Or Buffett and friends who do nothing but collect the profits reaped from the labor of the rest of us?

Welfare folks might be freeloaders, but at least they don't have the $ to buy politicians (and thus laws) to enslave us.

freak80 says

So who are the freeloaders? The "welfare bums"? Or Buffett and friends who do nothing but collect the profits reaped from the labor of the rest of us?

Someone who pays 25% federal income taxes and a bunch more for state income and property taxes is not my definition of a freeloader.

Nobody said they were.
If one is 'needy' due to being too 'lazy' to work, they should not benefit from government handouts.

Dan8267 says

SoftShell says

Full Definition of NEEDY


1: being in want : poverty-stricken

dead·beat noun \ˈded-ˌbēt\


1: a lazy person : a person who does not work

That's one of the problems with society today. Everybody wants to redefine words.

1. Those two definitions are not mutually exclusive.

So according to you almost 100% of the population does not work.
You'll have to provide your definition of 'almost' as the generally accepted meaning renders your statement blatantly false.

And, as an aside, I did not 'preented' anything...

Dan8267 says

SoftShell says

Full Definition of NEEDY


1: being in want : poverty-stricken

dead·beat noun \ˈded-ˌbēt\


1: a lazy person : a person who does not work

That's one of the problems with society today. Everybody wants to redefine words.

2. Almost 100% of the population meets the definition of "lazy" you preented.

Again, it's not 'my' definition of lazy.
Take it up with Ms Merriam.

Dan8267 says

SoftShell says

Full Definition of NEEDY


1: being in want : poverty-stricken

dead·beat noun \ˈded-ˌbēt\


1: a lazy person : a person who does not work

That's one of the problems with society today. Everybody wants to redefine words.

3. Your definition of needy provides no means testing.

zzyzzx says

Someone who pays 25% federal income taxes and a bunch more for state income and property taxes is not my definition of a freeloader.

What about someone who makes the vast majority of their income from ownership of assets (including your labor) rather than productive work?

No, Marriage used to mean just one thing.
A modern day photoshop generated chart stuffed with left wing dogma constructed by the Maddow-O'donnell-MrEd trilogy during commercial breaks does not change history.

Dan8267 says

1. Marriage used to mean a hell of a lot of things.

freak80 says

What about someone who makes the vast majority of their income from ownership of assets (including your labor) rather than productive work?

Doesn't matter, they still pay income taxes just like everyone else. I know I will still be paying taxes when I retire (if I ever retire).

Dick jokes are being warehoused here.
http://patrick.net/?p=1229249
Try to keep up....

Dan8267 says

2. You cannot marry a canary under any adopted or proposed marriage equality laws. As for mating with your canary, well, I wouldn't be surprised if you were size-appropriate for that.

I never stated that.
Assumption Is The Mother Of All Fuckups.

Dan8267 says

3. Just because you want only men and women to have recognized marriages does not mean that there is any material secular difference between opposite-sex and same-sex marriages.

No, it's simpler to come up with a different word and not disenfranchise a billion marriages based on the original interpretation of the word.

Dan8267 says

Instead of immediately dispelling hundreds of thousands of laws and causing utter chaos on the federal, state, and local level, it makes much more sense simply to update the legal interpretation of the word marriage to include same-sex marriages.

zzyzzx says

Doesn't matter, they still pay income taxes just like everyone else. I know I will still be paying taxes when I retire (if I ever retire).

You don't care that the ultra-rich are paying a lower tax rate than you are? Why not?

Is it Stockholm Syndrome?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome