Conservative VS Liberal

[Cleo's Mom 257]

My husband is in the navy 10 yrs enlisted, 4 years officer,Lt. I find it fascinating how many patriotic Republicans support illegal wars but have a large moral issue when it comes to healthcare for their fellow Americans. We all pay taxes, at least I have since my very first job at 16. Taxes are here always have been, suck it up and go to work. Maybe its easier for you to sit back and pay for someone else to die to get a gallon of gas for your hummer than to use your tax money to ensure that your fellow American is healthy and can contribute to this nation. I personally did not vote for Our great President because I knew his race would enflame Republicans across the States (It did) God forbid we have to do what that black guy says! "we want our country back" REALLY? REALLY? w

Thank you for your post and a fresh perspective on this thread. But I would ask that you not allow republicans to intimidate you into not voting for your candidate of choice. I say let the republicans and tea party be enflamed. Or go up in flames, metaphorically speaking.

Pres. Obama has shown time and time again that not only can he tackle the tough problems but he can give major and minor smack downs to the republicans when it calls for it. He has put them in their place (the minority party) more than once and countered their lies with the truth.

And also thank you for your husband's service to our country.

[KartMan 58]

Thank you for your post and a fresh perspective on this thread. But I would ask that you not allow republicans to intimidate you into not voting for your candidate of choice. I say let the republicans and tea party be enflamed. Or go up in flames, metaphorically speaking.

Pres. Obama has shown time and time again that not only can he tackle the tough problems but he can give major and minor smack downs to the republicans when it calls for it. He has put them in their place (the minority party) more than once and countered their lies with the truth.

And also thank you for your husband's service to our country.

Flaming teabaggers?

I know there must be a pun there

[KartMan 58]

I am on the edge of my seat wondering who Obama will nominate for Supreme Court. Stevens is probably stepping before the next term. I'm thinking Hillary Clinton might be an interesting choice. I wasn't her biggest fan before the last election, but I could not be more impressed with how she has handled the transition and her job as Secretary of State.

[pattygreen 5]

The government sets the standards for eligibility for these programs. If someone qualifies (truthfully) then it is justified. They have not committed a sin. That is only in your mind.

I was speaking about the many people who do not tell the truth. Those who scam the system. Those who apply truthfully are not doing anything wrong, obviously.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

I am on the edge of my seat wondering who Obama will nominate for Supreme Court. Stevens is probably stepping before the next term. I'm thinking Hillary Clinton might be an interesting choice. I wasn't her biggest fan before the last election, but I could not be more impressed with how she has handled the transition and her job as Secretary of State.

I haven't heard her name but I have heard Janet Napolitano. As to the teabaggers in flames - well I hadn't intended a pun but I guess you could find one.

[pattygreen 5]

from pattygreen: No. They won't go hungry. If the government didn't have any of these programs, and we didn't have to give the funds to the government for them, then we would have plenty left in our paychecks to give to the local food pantrys where they could receive food and eat. Also, if the government wasn't soooo huge and needed so much funds to run, the price of everything would go down and be more affordable for the people to care for themselves.

First of all, you are making a HUGE assumption about people - that if they had more money in their paychecks they would give more money to food banks, etc.. Well, they did get more money in their paychecks starting a year ago with the tax cut Pres. Obama gave to 95% of working people. Did the food banks benefit? No, because everything I have been reading is that all of these charity endeavors are hurting more than ever.

Also, I haven't noticed the price of anything going down as a result of this tax cut.

Just giving a tiny tax cut is not going to start a huge revival of charitable giving on the peoples part. They also need to cut the spending and stop most of the pork barrel spending, etc.

Roger Scruton, writing in the April issue of the American Spectator:

The proper response to a gift, even a gift of charity, is gratitude. People who feel gratitude also wish to express it. The easiest way is to give in one's turn. By giving you pass on and amplify the goodwill that you received. Thus it is that, in America, where the tradition of giving is very much alive, and the state has not yet extinguished the desire or the need for it, people give to their old school, to their university, to the hospital that cured them, to the local rescue service that saved them, and to the veterans who fought for them. They give without seeking or expecting recognition, but simply because gratitude is expressed through giving.

However, the state is taking over many of the functions that were previously performed by charities—not least education, health care, and the relief of poverty. And the state deals on impersonal and equal terms with its citizens. It has no favorites, and it is governed by the rules—anything else is received by the citizens as an injustice. Hence charity is replaced by justice as the ruling principle upon which social benefits are distributed. But while charity deals in gifts, justice deals in rights. And when you receive what is yours by right you don't feel grateful. Hence people who receive their education and health care from the state are less inclined to give to schools and hospitals in their turn—something that is borne out vividly by the figures concerning charitable giving. The spirit of gratitude retreats from the social experience, and in countries like France and Germany, where civil society is penetrated at every level by the state, people give little or nothing to charity, and regard gifts with suspicion, as attempts to privatize what should be a matter of public and impartial concern.

When gifts are replaced by rights, so is gratitude replaced by claims. And claims breed resentment. Since you are queuing on equal terms with the competition, you will begin to think of the special conditions that entitle you to a greater, a speedier, or a more effective share. You will be always one step from the official complaint, the court action, the press interview, and the snarling reproach against Them, the ones who owed you this right and also withheld it. That is the way European society is going, and American society may one day follow it.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Of course they did.

It is not my place to point out to people (personally) their sins or wrong doing.

Before you jump all over that statement I want you to recognize that this is a rants and raves forum and these are very controversuial issues that we are discussing, so when I point out wrongs, IMO, on these forums, it is because this is the place where I can do that. I would never personally tell someone that they are doing wrong. God will one day reveal their wrongs to them, just as he did for me.

This is a cop out. It isn't enough for you to rant all the time about people who don't deserve their government benefits, then offer suggestions for what they can do to get off the government dole but be unwilling to go any further.

Sounding off on here isn't going to change anything. Isn't that what you want? You already have discounted your elected reps as being willing to change the system. So like I said before, - IT IS UP TO YOU.

Why don't you send a letter (anonymous of course) to the department of welfare and tell them what you know about how these specific people are scamming the system? As I have said, you have intimate knowledge that they are doing it, so send the specifics to those in a position to take these benefits away.

Write letters to the editor and list your suggestions for them to earn extra money by shoveling snow, cutting grass or doing crafts. Then you can cut and paste your letter here if it gets published.

So, if you think your ideas have merit (I don't, but you obviously do) then do something about it so that you can genuinely get benefits taken away from undeserving people.

Even if you only get one single mom off WIC that should make you feel good.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Just giving a tiny tax cut is not going to start a huge revival of charitable giving on the peoples part. They also need to cut the spending and stop most of the pork barrel spending, etc.

Roger Scruton, writing in the April issue of the American Spectator:

The proper response to a gift, even a gift of charity, is gratitude. People who feel gratitude also wish to express it. The easiest way is to give in one's turn. By giving you pass on and amplify the goodwill that you received. Thus it is that, in America, where the tradition of giving is very much alive, and the state has not yet extinguished the desire or the need for it, people give to their old school, to their university, to the hospital that cured them, to the local rescue service that saved them, and to the veterans who fought for them. They give without seeking or expecting recognition, but simply because gratitude is expressed through giving.

However, the state is taking over many of the functions that were previously performed by charities—not least education, health care, and the relief of poverty. And the state deals on impersonal and equal terms with its citizens. It has no favorites, and it is governed by the rules—anything else is received by the citizens as an injustice. Hence charity is replaced by justice as the ruling principle upon which social benefits are distributed. But while charity deals in gifts, justice deals in rights. And when you receive what is yours by right you don't feel grateful. Hence people who receive their education and health care from the state are less inclined to give to schools and hospitals in their turn—something that is borne out vividly by the figures concerning charitable giving. The spirit of gratitude retreats from the social experience, and in countries like France and Germany, where civil society is penetrated at every level by the state, people give little or nothing to charity, and regard gifts with suspicion, as attempts to privatize what should be a matter of public and impartial concern.

When gifts are replaced by rights, so is gratitude replaced by claims. And claims breed resentment. Since you are queuing on equal terms with the competition, you will begin to think of the special conditions that entitle you to a greater, a speedier, or a more effective share. You will be always one step from the official complaint, the court action, the press interview, and the snarling reproach against Them, the ones who owed you this right and also withheld it. That is the way European society is going, and American society may one day follow it.

This is just so much BS. The needs of the poor, elderly, disabled and single parents is overwhelming and far beyond the ability of any one or collective charities to address. The charities supplement what the government does, but the sheer scope of need far outweighs available charities.

Take this recession. The government provides extended unemployment benefits, more qualify for medicaid, etc.. and yet all these Soup kitchens, food pantries and other charities are stretched beyond their capacity.

The need cannot be met by charities alone and to yearn for some yesteryear when people lived differently is to ignore the realities of today.

[pattygreen 5]

My husband is in the navy 10 yrs enlisted, 4 years officer,Lt. I find it fascinating how many patriotic Republicans support illegal wars but have a large moral issue when it comes to healthcare for their fellow Americans. We all pay taxes, at least I have since my very first job at 16. Taxes are here always have been, suck it up and go to work. Maybe its easier for you to sit back and pay for someone else to die to get a gallon of gas for your hummer than to use your tax money to ensure that your fellow American is healthy and can contribute to this nation. I personally did not vote for Our great President because I knew his race would enflame Republicans across the States (It did) God forbid we have to do what that black guy says! "we want our country back" REALLY? REALLY? w

So, what you're saying is you didn't vote for Obama because he's black? That's just as bad as my daughter and her boyfriend saying that they both voted for him because he was black.

You vote for the President of the United States because you feel he is qualified to take on the job and because he is a man of good morals and integrity, NOT because of his skin color.

And as far as people ssaying "We want our country back".....

Yes, we do. We want it back from those who will not follow the Constitution, and from those who wheel and deal in back rooms, and from those who keep us uninformed about what they are doing, (to this day we still don't know who wrote the HC bill) we want it back from politicians who are spending us into Oblivion, from those who are bankrupting us, and from those who squander and waste our hard earned dollars, and from those who are cheats and liars and thieves, and from all those who are corrupt and moving us in the wrong direction. And, we don't care what color they are!

[pattygreen 5]

Head Start is the federal government’s largest early education program. For more than 40 years, this pet project has been a sinkhole for taxpayer dollars and an ineffective education program for children. As Congress considers expanding the federal government’s role in early childhood education, the new Head Start evaluation should clearly signal to policymakers the necessity of reforming existing programs – not furthering ineffective models such as Head Start.

Long Overdue Head Start Evaluation Shows No Lasting Benefit for Children

Posted January 14th, 2010 at 10:03am

After some prodding, yesterday the Obama administration released the long-overdue first grade evaluation of the federal Head Start program. As expected, the results show that the $7 billion per year program provides little benefit to children – and great expense to taxpayers.

The evaluation, which was mandated by Congress during the 1998 reauthorization of the program, found little impact on student well-being. After collecting data on more than 5,000 three and four-year-old children randomly assigned to either a Head Start or a non Head Start control group, the Department of Health and Human Services found “few sustained benefits”. From the report:

In sum, this report finds that providing access to Head Start has benefits for both 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds in the cognitive, health, and parenting domains, and for 3-year-olds in the social-emotional domain. However, the benefits of access to Head Start at age four are largely absent by 1st grade for the program population as a whole. For 3-year-olds, there are few sustained benefits, although access to the program may lead to improved parent-child relationships through 1st grade…

[LeighaMason 19]

Just giving a tiny tax cut is not going to start a huge revival of charitable giving on the peoples part. They also need to cut the spending and stop most of the pork barrel spending, etc.

Roger Scruton, writing in the April issue of the American Spectator:

The proper response to a gift, even a gift of charity, is gratitude. People who feel gratitude also wish to express it. The easiest way is to give in one's turn. By giving you pass on and amplify the goodwill that you received. Thus it is that, in America, where the tradition of giving is very much alive, and the state has not yet extinguished the desire or the need for it, people give to their old school, to their university, to the hospital that cured them, to the local rescue service that saved them, and to the veterans who fought for them. They give without seeking or expecting recognition, but simply because gratitude is expressed through giving.

However, the state is taking over many of the functions that were previously performed by charities—not least education, health care, and the relief of poverty. And the state deals on impersonal and equal terms with its citizens. It has no favorites, and it is governed by the rules—anything else is received by the citizens as an injustice. Hence charity is replaced by justice as the ruling principle upon which social benefits are distributed. But while charity deals in gifts, justice deals in rights. And when you receive what is yours by right you don't feel grateful. Hence people who receive their education and health care from the state are less inclined to give to schools and hospitals in their turn—something that is borne out vividly by the figures concerning charitable giving. The spirit of gratitude retreats from the social experience, and in countries like France and Germany, where civil society is penetrated at every level by the state, people give little or nothing to charity, and regard gifts with suspicion, as attempts to privatize what should be a matter of public and impartial concern.

When gifts are replaced by rights, so is gratitude replaced by claims. And claims breed resentment. Since you are queuing on equal terms with the competition, you will begin to think of the special conditions that entitle you to a greater, a speedier, or a more effective share. You will be always one step from the official complaint, the court action, the press interview, and the snarling reproach against Them, the ones who owed you this right and also withheld it. That is the way European society is going, and American society may one day follow it.

The republicans need this type of drivel published everyday so they can justify thier mean, hateful behavior. Since they are so small minded and can not think on their own they must have these people do it for them, in the form of these anecdotal stories that have no basis in science, history or any other logical discipline its all feelings and innuendo.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Just giving a tiny tax cut is not going to start a huge revival of charitable giving on the peoples part. They also need to cut the spending and stop most of the pork barrel spending, etc.

Roger Scruton, writing in the April issue of the American Spectator:

The proper response to a gift, even a gift of charity, is gratitude. People who feel gratitude also wish to express it. The easiest way is to give in one's turn. By giving you pass on and amplify the goodwill that you received. Thus it is that, in America, where the tradition of giving is very much alive, and the state has not yet extinguished the desire or the need for it, people give to their old school, to their university, to the hospital that cured them, to the local rescue service that saved them, and to the veterans who fought for them. They give without seeking or expecting recognition, but simply because gratitude is expressed through giving.

However, the state is taking over many of the functions that were previously performed by charities—not least education, health care, and the relief of poverty. And the state deals on impersonal and equal terms with its citizens. It has no favorites, and it is governed by the rules—anything else is received by the citizens as an injustice. Hence charity is replaced by justice as the ruling principle upon which social benefits are distributed. But while charity deals in gifts, justice deals in rights. And when you receive what is yours by right you don't feel grateful. Hence people who receive their education and health care from the state are less inclined to give to schools and hospitals in their turn—something that is borne out vividly by the figures concerning charitable giving. The spirit of gratitude retreats from the social experience, and in countries like France and Germany, where civil society is penetrated at every level by the state, people give little or nothing to charity, and regard gifts with suspicion, as attempts to privatize what should be a matter of public and impartial concern.

When gifts are replaced by rights, so is gratitude replaced by claims. And claims breed resentment. Since you are queuing on equal terms with the competition, you will begin to think of the special conditions that entitle you to a greater, a speedier, or a more effective share. You will be always one step from the official complaint, the court action, the press interview, and the snarling reproach against Them, the ones who owed you this right and also withheld it. That is the way European society is going, and American society may one day follow it.

When a priest wrote a letter to the editor similar to the above article, he got blasted by replies, the following by another priest who gets it right:

Out-of-step position

The Rev. James Holland's diatribe against Catholic social teaching ("Individuals, Not Government, Must Care for the Poor," March 22 letters) proclaims a toxic brand of cafeteria Catholicism. It is an outright attack upon constant papal teaching. When he denies the obligation of the state to help all those who cannot help themselves, he rejects the entire corpus of Catholic social teaching.

Pope Leo XIII wrote that "a small number of rich men have been able to lay upon the masses of the poor a yoke little better than slavery itself. ... The richer population have many ways of protecting themselves, and stand less in need of help from the State." Pope Pius XI described the economic system as "hard, cruel and relentless" and reiterated that the state has the obligation to care for the common good. When human rights can be fulfilled in no other way, then it falls to the state to honor them. Pope John XXIII enumerated among those rights, the basic rights to food, shelter and health care.

Father Holland advocates for an individualistic Catholicism at odds with the whole Catholic tradition. Individual acts of charity are essential to the improvement of our society, but Pope Benedict XVI has made it clear, they do not suffice. He teaches that hand in hand with charity we must have justice to change the unjust structures and systems that oppress the poor. He calls it "action for justice," and in his encyclical on hope, he teaches that the proper role of the state is to organize the just order of society.

Father Holland's position is so out of step with Catholic tradition, it is not even recognizable as Catholic.

REV. DAVID L. SMITH

Edited April 6, 2010 by Cleo's Mom

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Head Start is the federal government’s largest early education program. For more than 40 years, this pet project has been a sinkhole for taxpayer dollars and an ineffective education program for children. As Congress considers expanding the federal government’s role in early childhood education, the new Head Start evaluation should clearly signal to policymakers the necessity of reforming existing programs – not furthering ineffective models such as Head Start.

Long Overdue Head Start Evaluation Shows No Lasting Benefit for Children

Posted January 14th, 2010 at 10:03am

After some prodding, yesterday the Obama administration released the long-overdue first grade evaluation of the federal Head Start program. As expected, the results show that the $7 billion per year program provides little benefit to children – and great expense to taxpayers.

The evaluation, which was mandated by Congress during the 1998 reauthorization of the program, found little impact on student well-being. After collecting data on more than 5,000 three and four-year-old children randomly assigned to either a Head Start or a non Head Start control group, the Department of Health and Human Services found “few sustained benefits”. From the report:

In sum, this report finds that providing access to Head Start has benefits for both 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds in the cognitive, health, and parenting domains, and for 3-year-olds in the social-emotional domain. However, the benefits of access to Head Start at age four are largely absent by 1st grade for the program population as a whole. For 3-year-olds, there are few sustained benefits, although access to the program may lead to improved parent-child relationships through 1st grade…

And I published a report that studied the effects for a longer period and found positive outcomes, so what's your point, other than to take another thing away from poor kids.

Let's reduce corporate welfare by $7 billion per year and keep this program. Making corporations finally pay their fair share of taxes would be a first step.

[tdslf1 0]

Bottom line PG,

People would starve and die under your proposed process. Rely on charity to help the poor? You have been saying time and time again that people would find out how to scam for free things. People like you would take that attitude towards the charity and not give. Not saying you never did, but you like many would get tired of doing it without help. Bottom line some people are selfish to others when it is their choice, like giving money or food right into the hand of a poor person instead of an agency. If poor people came to your door everyday to ask for food and clothing, you would get tired of it and look for other sources they could go to or start your own services, WITH the help of the government and not out of your pocket. The government knows this so they have implemented programs for these people. Just because they are wasteful, and I didn't say that you did, don't mean people don't need them, nor need to have them in place when people do need them.

[LeighaMason 19]

Have you ever been to a charity event where someone is so busy showing how charitable they are (look how much I give!), but you know this person and you know what a horrible person they are, you know its all for the show, its all an act? I have.