Election Day 2012

[DGFone]

At least I don't have the illusion that I'm not imposing it on others.

Do I agree with everything our government it doing? Of course not! Do I still support it? Currently, barely. Will I support it more if it will do more of what I think is the right thing> Of course I will. But I won't walk around and tell people "In order for all of us to be united and equal, we need to separate all ethnic groups and classes away from each other (because intermixing will always cause crime) and stay away from each other. Only then will we be able to have a just society where everyone are free to do as they please."

Can't remember I said such a thing... I say fix the poor and the sick and give everybody a fair chance. That's equality, not that weird sentence you just typed nor your current system.

No, I just added up all your arguments and what you ever told me. You preach tolerance and peace between everybody. But you support banning Muslims from entering the Netherlands, and want your country to split off from the EU in order to save its own skin.

Unity and helping everyone!

[DGFone]

I suggest a namechange to: The Divided States. After that I won't complain, or you could fix the poor.

Still telling us how to live our lives I see... In the very same topic where you post that you don't do this, and that you only tell of your world view...

Anyways, we might call ourselves the Unite States, but I live in California. Not Texas, not New York, not even my neighboring state of Oregon or Nevada. The U.S. is a nation spanning a continent. THERE IS NO "one size fits all" solution so that me will truly become 'united', as you say. Yes, there are some things that the federal government should do, but but they are few and far in between. Everything else? Leave it to the states if not an even more local level. Sometimes, you might need a different solution for two cities in the same state...

Oh, and uh, the Netherlands also have poor. Perhaps you might want to fix that as well before telling us to fix our own poor...

[Azdgari]

So you don't believe it's ironic that someone who stands on the stump bellowing about lowering taxes across the board actually plans to, essentially, raise taxes?

Not really. Politicians have stating they will do this and that while campaigning, but when in office, they do something else entirely. Now concerning taxes, both Presidents Reagan, H.W. Bush, and Clinton campaigned to not raise taxes, but raised taxes during office. Romney, if elected, will be no exception.

Why vote for him if nothing he says is reliable? Which, notably, it is not, as he changes his position unlike any other politician that I've certainly ever seen. He's turned his back on abortion, gay marriage, and climate stances since he governed my state, and gosh, what does that all have in common? It's not on the party platform he wants. So he's happy to sell out his principles as long as he satisfies his party.

Obama campaigned on ending war in Iraq. It is over. He campaigned on killing Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden is dead. He campaigned on saving the economy: it has grown for 31 straight months and is far from the cliff it teetered on, and the deficit is shrinking each year. He campaigned on saving the auto industry: he saved it. He campaigned on environmental issues: he has followed through. He campaigned on cracking down on wall street: he created the financial Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. He campaigned on revolutionizing health care: whether you like the bill or not, he certainly kept the promise.

Why vote for someone you admit will not do what he says ? Why vote for a chameleonic idealogue like Romney?



@DGFone: quite classic Republican outlook. I like it! Not necessarily my point of view, but that balance of those who tote state power and those who champion federalism is what make our country great. The answer, as always, lies in the middle... and with the Supreme Court, I suppose.

How would you respond to this argument, DGFone: We need federal gun regulation. Allowing individual states to police their guns is irresponsible because some states such as Arizona continue to maintain pathetically weak gun laws that allow dozens of assault weapons to be bought with minimal identification and then never accounted for. Other states allow concealed hand weapons on school grounds. For the sake of argument (and gosh I sure do hope) you believe that these laws are irresponsible. Isn't it the responsibility of the federal government to have the final say and keep our citizens, all of our citizens, safe?

[Regulus]

lol, DGF, I've always thought the complete opposite. No need for local and state governments if there's one big government. I've always hated the inconsistencies when living in different states. Especially in the modern era.

Things aren't like they used to be in the 1800s. To go from California to where I live takes about 5 hours. Cultures are much more mixed now, because technology has brought us closer together. Not necessarily in terms of distance, but in terms of time, because it is proportional to speed... yeah, whatever, I'm rambling.

And it does not create violence, per se. What creates violence is a lack of equality. Culture and race are irrelevant.

[KentuckyWildcat]

[quote="Woeler1]I argue and debate politics in a respectful way. Debating everything I do not agree with is not a form of disrespect. It pisses me off that people think namecalling makes them superior. And you can be as much non-europe as you like, but before you do that, ask the poor... Freedom should not include the freedom to starve or live on the street. Help the people, all of them. And as long as there are families without a home, education or any other basic needs, there is something wrong with that. Every human deserves a decent life.

A government for the people. Not a people for the government.

If you deny that everyone in the US deserves a decent life. You're not a society. A society is united, not divided. A society works for each other, not for himself. A society helps the poor and treats the sick, not reject them.

We must stop thinking about the individual and start focussing on society.

I think this society suffers so much from too much freedom, too many rights that allow too many people to be too irresponsible. And that is in one sentence what I think. Call me a fool, not an argument. Call me a European, not an argument. Do I have a different worldview? Sure. Does that mean I should shut up? Nope.[/quote]

Since you believe so strongly against namecalling, remember that the next time you're about to call someone ignorant, delusional, etc. You seem to have a habit of it.

Anyway, to the main point of your argument, we're never going to agree. That's OK because the world would be a boring place if everybody thought exactly alike. I will offer a few counterpoints though.

1. You seem convinced that the US is some sort of disaster zone when that's just not the case. Specifically, your comment about education reveals that you don't know certain things about life in America since children are required by law to stay in school at least until high school. As for your comments about the poor, we do make efforts to take care of them. Poverty still exists of course, but it does in Europe too.

Further, it is quite frankly impossible in country as large and diverse as the US to ensure that everyone is on the exact same footing financially. Even if it was, we'll just have to accept that we have differing opinions of what is fair. To you, fair seems to mean giving everyone the same thing. To me, it isn't fair to take away from people who have earned more in order to prop up those who haven't. Such a system discourages innovation and hard work because individuals lack any incentive. Before you assume that I'm completely callous, I do firmly believe in charity. I just don't think that the government should mandate a redistribution of wealth.

2. I also support the freedom to make bad choices. Simply put, since you seem to be advocating a restriction of freedom to do things you deem "irresponsible". Who gets to decide what qualifies as irresponsible though? The government? History has proven that once a government is granted power over an area of it's citizens' lives, it never gives it back. This could theoretically lead to more and more oppression by an increasingly enpowered government. Quite honestly, if people want to be irresponsible, I'm fine with them suffering the consequences for their own choices rather than expecting the government to pick them up.

[Regulus]

To me, it isn't fair to take away from people who have earned more in order to prop up those who haven't. Such a system discourages innovation and hard work because individuals lack any incentive.

We are humans. We do not need an external reward to desire to improve. It is what we do, naturally.

Anyone who is only doing something to make a quick dollar isn't putting out a quality product anyway. We've all experienced that.

Before you assume that I'm completely callous, I do firmly believe in charity. I just don't think that the government should mandate a redistribution of wealth.

Then what do you believe a government should do? If a government should not help to support its people, it exists instead to ______.

Please, help me out here. I really don't understand that.

[DGFone]

About crime: Call me a defeatist, but until we reach the thermal Heat-Death of the universe, where nothing basically exists because the entire universe will be identical, we will not have equality. While life still exists on Earth, there will never be equality, and there will be crime with humans. I know it doesn't take itself seriously, but there is one thing Team Fortress 2 got right (in Meet the Sniper): "As long as there's two people left on the planet, someone is going to want someone else dead."

Az: If I can implement gun laws on everyone (which I cant, Woeler), they would be this: When you are born, you start off with a clean slate. You can buy whichever gun you want as long as you have the funds. If you want a nuke, you will need to create everything yourself. Corporations will not be able to claim "individual rights" - i.e. companies will not be able to pool their resources to gather armies. If you want to own 'cool guns' and shoot full auto at a wooden target, I don't see why you can't. As long as you can afford it.

However, the moment you mess up even once, you will be highly restricted on what kind of firearms you can have. Say, after one crime, you can only have single-shot, large and heavy rifles that are inconvenient to hide. Mess up a second time, and you can't own a gun. If you get shot, that's your problem. But you can relax in knowing that the person who shot you won't be able to shoot anymore.

Reg: Yes, it is possible to cross the U.S. in 5 hours. But despite that, the states are still very much different. California did not get struck by Sandy, for instance. New York doesn't have to worry about Earthquakes. California has sales tax. Montana doesn't. We are very divided.

[Azdgari]

Well, I guess that's why you can't make gun laws.

[Regulus]

California has sales tax. Montana doesn't. We are very divided.

But, my question is: why?

Why are we divided? I can't think of any reason for it anymore. It made sense at first, because we started off as individual colonies. In 1776, gathering all the leaders for each colony in one place was a huge hassle, so they needed to be able to make their own laws.

Now, we're talking about all this stuff in near real-time, and we live 2500 miles away. I don't even have to leave my house. It's so easy to communicate between states, there's no reason to have them. We have geographical differences, but that's it.

Sure, you didn't get hurricane Sandy, but it would take a day, at most, to visit the NY/NJ area and see what actually happened, assuming seeing pictures of it on the internet or news isn't good enough. We know what goes on in the rest of the world now, and as a result, we can make laws that would work best for everyone, no matter what part of the world they live in. It's not like I don't know what an earthquake is. I've been in one. I've been in a hurricane too. I haven't been in a tornado, but I've seen what they can do. Do we need different building codes and regulations in different areas? Absolutely! But most of which should be generalized. Because you never know, maybe California will get a hurricane one day. Maybe I'll get an earthquake on the east coast too.

Standardization is good. You are also an engineering student, so you should know that. Imagine if the power grid in each state is different. Imagine what things would be like if kitchen appliances bought in California didn't work where I live? That would just be stupid, wouldn't it? Since people travel often, it's good to keep things consistent. Electricity works in just the same way across the world, so there's no reason to go around playing with voltage levels in different states.

Laws that work in New York are going to work in San Diego too, right? There's no reason for one state to have the death penalty, and one not to. There's no reason for some states to have drunk driving a felony, whereas in others it's only a misdemeanor. Really, I don't even care. I just want consistency. If something is unlawful at point A, shouldn't it be unlawful at point B too?

We need to be united, and like it or not, we already sort of are. And I would like to believe that in a few hundred years from now, we won't even have countries. We will be a single race, a single culture. It will be called humanity. We will likely speak a new language, which is a combination of English, Spanish, and Chinese, and the political system will likely resemble the UN. Our units of measurement will all be metric.

[DGFone]

California has sales tax. Montana doesn't. We are very divided.

But, my question is: why?

This is what simple research answers, and here is 'why': Here in California, people own a lot of material property, and buy a lot of things. In Montana, people own a lot of land, seeing as many of them are farmers. It only makes sense for Montana to have a high land tax (which California doesn't) and no sales tax. In California, you want to tax trade, because there is a lot of it, but you won't get a lot of tax income if you tax land.

So while me call ourselves the "United States" and are all connected, the way we live is still very different, and in the end, taxes are determined by the way we live.