America, at its core, is a progressive nation. It is a nation focused on moving forward. Founded on the idea of escaping religious persecution, America has always been an ideal of progress and the relentless pursuit of that goal. We don t always get it right. 
Throughout our history the forces of evil greed, prejudice, hate have occasionally taken the reigns of power and exerted their darkness over our people. But because America is about progress, about reaching for the stars and trying again when you don t quite get there, these enemies of progress inevitably fail. They may appear to have the support of our people, but inevitably the good triumphs.
It is time for a new Progressive Era in America. Progressives understand what conservatives do not, that looking backwards, looking to some mythical image of 1950s era domesticity as the paragon of freedom is a fool s game. As such, progressives must now more than ever embrace the values of progressive culture wholeheartedly without delay.
Fiscal Strength: An economic system that rewards taking money out of the system is destined to fail. We must repeal the economic policies that slant tax policy in favor of the landed gentry and realign our system to encourage economic growth for the masses of people and not simply the leisure class. Growth at the small business level would do more for the economy than the current system of tax evasion for a few major businesses who pump endless infusions of cash into the political system.
Military Might: Progressive Americans led the defeat of the Nazis and the imperialist Japanese Empire, the gravest threat that has ever faced America. Into the future, we must have a system of military engagement that simultaneously defends America and is capable of eliminating our enemies. It should not be a system that blindly thrashes about for something to hit in order for its leaders to feel good about themselves, but rather should be an ecosystem of threats and responses that has the ability to step back and consider the larger goals and needs to keep our nation strong.
Educational Dominance: America s future ruin is a certainty if we continue to devalue education as we have under conservative government. America is number one, and it is past time for our schools to begin acting like it. We need to remove the stain of junk science and historically inaccurate material being propagandized by the right on our nation s institutes of higher learning. We need to have a rational system of measuring academic performance, while also establishing a baseline of funding for all American schools no matter the economic status of the neighborhoods surrounding them. Our education, at its most basic level, must be progressive if we wish to move forward and avoid our intellectual enslavement at the hands of foreign nations.
Accountability in Government: A government that is supposed to keep America running must be subject to oversight at all levels. We cannot outsource essential functions like the military or disaster preparedness to private industry they are focused on profit not people. Our government must be a government that does not sacrifice basic scientific facts at the altar of political greed, we must have a government that is not at the behest of the well-heeled few but serves its people no matter their economic status.
These things, and other things thought of by people much smarter than I are solely needed in America now more than ever. Too many people have died and continue to die at the hands of conservative leadership for us to allow this dark era in America to envelop us. Only the light of progress is going to be able to restore our glory and move us forward.
Why is it that conservatives get so emotional about a fetus, only to lose interest when that child is born?
They don’t want to guarantee well-baby care and nutrition, or day-care and pre-school education because that’s too expensive. No, they would rather force some woman to have a child she does not want, then subject that child to emotional and possibly physical abuse reuslitng, many times, in anti-social or criminal behavior in that individual, when growing into adulthood.
No, they lose interest in that child for quite a few years. That is they forget about the child until he/She reaches Military eligibility. THEN, they are interested again. Could the need for vast quantities of cannon fodder be the intent here?
Many conservatives claim to be followers of Christ. It is interesting to note that the self-righteous proclamations of those who claim the mantle of Christ fall on deaf ears. You see, Jesus reserved his most damning outrage for the hypocrites who claim to represent him, but who only use him to disguise their own avarice and venal thoughts.
Thank You Oliver!!!
I have been arguing this for days. The first Progessive Movement in America was born of the shock and outrage unleashed by the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in 1901. The tragedy in New Orleans must be the beginning of the second.
Jeebus, SadieB! Where did you go to school?
The first Progressive Era had its roots in Transcendentalism (1830′ – 1840’s), which among other things, kicked off the American abolitionist movement, and the first American (libertarian) feminist movement.
And, the Triangle Shirt Waist fire was in 1911.
Use the Internet! Please!
Sorry anout the links
Transcendentalism:
http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/ideas/definitionbickman.html
Triangle Shirt Factory Fire:
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/
“Military Might: Progressive Americans led the defeat of the Nazis and the imperialist Japanese Empire, the gravest threat that has ever faced America.”
No. Really the gravest threat was the Soviet Union and the communist menace which was more directed at us, had nukes, and murdered roughly four times as many as the Nazis. Conservatives led by Reagan defeated the gravest threat to this country – a threat at times actively aided and abetted by your “progressive elements” – like Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs. Also it was the military who actually did the hard work against the Nazis and we know which party they belong to (mostly).
And ” An economic system that rewards taking money out of the system is destined to fail.” Don’t understand that. Are we talking about letting people keep some of what they work for and earn? Is this “system” you are talking about some wealthy independent dowry for the country. A big bank account we inherited. Otherwise you talk about controlling the sweat and toil derived earnings of the peole as if those earnings belong to you or progressives – rather than the workers.
Dugger, A man, a plan, a canal, Panama.
Dugger;
Reagan’s chief contribution over his 8 years was declaring ‘ketchup is a vegetable’.
Please, the american people always credit/blame the temporary resident of the White House for anything that occurs/does not occur during his tenure.
The removal of the Soviet threat is not quite accomplished you might notice, thanks to the current occupant of the White House
dugger1 it’s called economics.
It was Adam Smith who first realized that labor is the source of all wealth. Capitalism takes the surplus created by labor and redistributes it to those who own the means of production — the factory owners, the financiers. If you don’t have some sort of mechanism to correct for this, the system grinds to a halt, as we saw in the Great Depression. Luckily John Maynard Keynes was there to explain all this to FDR, who then implemented the New Deal and got our country back on its feet (while licking the Gerries at the same time, no less).
But Reaganomics and “trickle down” killed Keynesianism, with the results we are now seeing today.
Thank you for posting this!
Semanticleo’s response hit the nail on the head. My neighbor’s teenage daughter just had a baby and dropped out of high school. She chose to keep her baby and raise it, which is an admirable decision, but she’s also throwing her life away. If the schools had taught sex education & contraception, she probably wouldn’t be in that position today. Thanks to their unrealistic abstienance-only education, you have teenage mothers dropping out of school who will always be poor and struggling to raise a child by themselves.
Reagan’s hard-line on the USSR was well-appreciated, but his increase in military spending and SDI didn’t do anything. The USSR broke up when Gorbachev instituted glasnost and perestroika. Glasnost gave a voice to the discontent that, until then, had been atomized in Soviet kitchens, as well as providing an outlet to nationalist sentiments that had been brewing ever since Stalin’s institution of the Russification plan. Gorbachev himself expressed surprise at the nationalist feelings awoken by his reforms. The real downfall of the system came as a result of the fact that when the people are allowed to express themselves, they’ll point out that 2+2 does not equal 3.
And the Rosenburgs were commies, not progressives. They wanted a Stalinist revolution that would involve the supression of free speech and the imprisonment of undesirable elements. That sounds more like the Republicans these days. And Alger Hiss, who may or may not have been a commie, was railroaded and subjected to an unfair trial. Even communists and fascists have rights in this country.
Could we bring the discussion of the Cold War (and the accompanying left wing revisionism) to a close, and take a look at Oliver’s rosy Progressive Future
America is not at its core, a progressive nation. The proto – progressive philosophy didn’t enter the American scene until the 1830’s, when America was more than 50 years old. It iwas founded on “sweat equity ” and the entrepreneurial spirit. It was built by people trying to improve themselves, not by people encoiled in some collective hive – like machine. America was not founded on the idea of escaping religious persecution; but on the idea of being free to practice the religion of one’s choosing. Only a few of the original colonies were intrinsically religious. Most were propietary i.e.,, designed to make money for the King.
There has been no time in our history when “the forces of evil greed, prejudice, hate have occasionally taken the reigns of power and exerted their darkness over our people.” (Of course, if I am wrong, feel free to correct me). America is about progress, about reaching for the stars and trying again when you don t quite get there, the enemies of freedom inevitably fail.
People — and politicians, statesmen, and bureaucrats are people, not Gods or supermen — try to be good, but fail sometimes
Fiscal Strength: An economic system that rewards taking money out of the system is destined to fail. If by system, you mean GNP, then government is the greatest offender. Decrease the share of GNP taken bu government, and America will boom again.
While growth at the small business level would be desirable, it is not appropriate to today’s international economy.
Military Might: Progressive Americans had nothing whatever to do with the defeat of the Nazis and the imperialist Japanese Empire, and in fact impeded our entrance into the war, until Germany attacked the Soviet Union (surprise, surprise!) As Dugger said, the rise of the Soviet Union was the gravest threat to our existence in modern history (the Secession and subsequent Civil War was the gravest threat to our existence of all time), mostly because the Soviet Union had enlisted the aid of so many conscious and unwitting fellow travellers, who exist today, and believe that Soviet Communism was a “failed experiment.”.
We must have a system of military engagement that simultaneously defends America and is capable of eliminating our enemies. We do.
The military is not like an untended garden hose; it is a finely crafted, well – machined tool that depends on two things: one, calculation and foresight in its use, and two, the full, wholehearted support of the people it defens — us.
In a hissy – fit over their dissatisfaction with number one, they refused to participate in number two, thus affecting the morale and effectiveness of our troops in the field. A progressive government controlling our military would give us “one, two many Viet Nams”.
Educational Dominance: Our problem with education is not content, that’s for sure: our students don’t know anything!
There is no “rational system of measuring academic performance” which will be accepted by the money hungry, “feel good” social worker wannabes who pass for teachers in our country today. They don’t even major in college in the subjects they teach — now that would be a start!
Accountability in Government: A government that is spending 1/3 to 1/2 of its time gazing at its own navel, is not acccomplishing anything, either…
These things, and other things thought of by people much smarter than you , have consistently failed whenever and wherever tried. These ideas are worn – out, coming from dog -eared books written two centuries ago, when supposedlly educated people believed in the now discredited idea of the perfectability of man.
Frank I know it seems I am on your ass today, but it was the Republicans who did not want to enter WWII against Germany. They hated FDR and didn’t trust his judgement, they also hated Stalin. Conservatives thought it we ought to either take Germany’s side or at least remain neutral.
Frank;
What part does the concept “noblesse oblige’ play in your concept of a ‘progressive’ nation (a term conservatives malign along with ‘liberal’)
Is there no moral imperative for the ‘haves’ to reach out economically to the’have nots’?
Can we ever acheive economic parity and equality of result? Probably not.
But you have to ask the wealthiest of this country “how much better can you eat?”
Quaker: I said Progressives had nothing to do with it. Roosevelt, and subsequently his administration moved to the left when faced with the threat of Huey Long in 1932 (I double checked that — he was assassinated on September 8, 70 years ago).
To give credit where credit is due, FDR inspired and galvanized the nation into putting out a Herculean national effort, but to say the Progressives, or Democrats, won World War II, is to, in my view, imply that the war was won in Washington.
It demeans the efforts of War production employees, and combat soldiers alike.
Reagan, of course, relied heavily on the work of Lech Walesa, Pope John Paul II, and The Iron lady, Margaret Thatcher…
Roosevelt had nothing to do with it, but you’ll credit Reagan for winning the Cold War?
Sweet sufferin’ mackerels.
An economic system that rewards taking money out of the system is destined to fail. Don’t understand that.
Allow me, for a minute. As I have pointed out elsewhere I am housebound today and bored, so Oliver I hope you don’t mind?
Let’s talk about investment. What is investment? It means I give someone a dollar because I expect to get $1.10 back somewhere down the road. I am taking money out of the system, see? I’m gettting back more than what I put in. What is labor? It means I work for somebody to make something, they pay me 50 cents to make it, sell it for $1.00 and keep the difference. I am putting money into the system, right? Because what I get out of the exchange is less than the value of what I put in.
Left to its own devices, this system will keep ratcheting itself up. More and more resources will be funneled towards the investors at the expense of the workers. This is why all successful economies are based on a blend of capitalism and socialism. Capitalism creates wealth, by taking money away from workers you stimulate them to keep on working, keep making more. But socialism siphons some of that money off and gives it back to the workers. Since they spend everything they get (that’s pretty much the definition of what it means to be poor, it means you’ve not no surplus to invest) they keep the economy going by buying stuff. Think of it like oxen hitched up to harvest corn — you’ve got to give some corn to the oxen if you want to keep using them in the future.
The exact ratio of capitalism to socialism is a policy decision, different societies have different priorities, different thresholds for human suffering. European countries lean more to the socialist end of the spectrum while the US has traditionally favored more capitalism in the mix.
OK. But that’s not what Oliver wrote. He wrote:
And your argument that progressives “had nothing to do with” that victory is what again? That FDR wasn’t a progressive?
Quaker: I don’t believe progressives led the defeat of the Nazis and the Japanese (unless, of course, you identify said progressives) and second, I don’t believe FDR was a progressive as Oliver is using the term.
Your move.
* * *
SadieB: Yes, it does seem you are on my ass today, but at least you’re not calling me names you wouldn’t repeat at your mother’s dinner table!
Is there no moral imperative for the haves to reach out economically to the have nots ? Absolutely not – if you mean in some coercive way…
It is perfectly acceptable to asses and rely on the generosity of our wealthiest citizens. However, deciding for them how much of their earnings they should ( how much better can you eat? ) is where one runs afoul of a citizen’s right “freedom of poperty”.
Is there no moral imperative for the haves to reach out economically to the have nots ? Absolutely not – if you mean in some coercive way…
Can we ever acheive economic parity and equality of result? Why would we want to? If we haven’t in nearly 400 years of existence, I don’t think we’re going to make it..
Dugger;
I am perfectly willing to give Reagan crdit for recognizing ‘Ketchup” as a vegetable, and for leading the charge to bankrupt Social Security. But the defeat of the Soviet Empire? Have you noticed it is alive and well? Delusion is the first stage of pathology. Remember your meds.
Joshua,
Hiss was guilty and paid a small price. The most “unfair” aspect of the trial was the Hiss people’s treatment of Chambers which at one point was grossly and hideously homophobic (look it up). And in my book a commie is a progressive but a progressive need not be a commie.
Semanticleo,
Silliness. If Reagan doesn’t deserve credit for winning the cold war and ending the evil empire, then FDR deserves no credit for WWII (I think FDR deserves and Reagan deserves). Maybe Salk doesn’t deserve credit for reducing polio – since he did’t give most of the shots.
Dugger
Frank;
Your dance is worthy of Astaire, but you are not leading. Is there any room for ‘noblesse oblige’ in your vision of utopia?
No, my work is done here.
Reagan s chief contribution over his 8 years was declaring ketchup is a vegetable .
That’s because he was a vegetable too. lol
In reality, it’s very likely Reagan prolonged the Cold War. What is not in dispute is the fact that of all post-WWII Presidents, Reagan played the smallest role in the collapse of the USSR.
George F. Kennan (the father of the containment policy–the policy the US used to win the Cold War) believed Reagan’s contributions were minimal to detrimental.
Frank_D, your mom is calling you for diner upstairs.
Noblesse oblige: the obligation of honorable, generous, and responsible behavior associated with high social rank or birth.
I thought I answered you here: It is perfectly acceptable to asses and rely on the generosity of our wealthiest citizens. However, deciding for them how much of their earnings they should ( how much better can you eat? ) is where one runs afoul of a citizen s right freedom of poperty .
To be more specific: Noblesse oblige is a personal feeling, not a government fiat. I don’t believe that people with great wealth have an objective responsibility to help the needy.
If I knew someone who was truly wealthy (I don’t), and they were not generous, I might nudge them in that direction.
But to “gang up” on the rich, and tax them excessively (I’m not saying that that is what’s happening now) is unfair.
sirkowski;
Please don’t help me
cJadeGold, you are a pathetic twit. Of course, Kennan might have minimized Reagan’s role in ending the Cold War. Kennan’s “containment policy” restrained only us, and gave the USSR carte blanche around the world to infiltrate one government after another with impunity. The only reason the name “The Cod War” had any meaning was because the Soviet Union was at war with us. The “cold” part was that we were frozen as if in ice by decades of nonconfrontational foreign policy. Reagan capitalized on the Soviets’ weakness, it’s true, but no President before or since would have.
But I’d still like to see that statement of Kennan’s documented. He was after all, a diplomat.
JadeGold:
On Kennan v Reagan: Here’s a page full of articles on Kennan’s differences with Reagan, none of which indicated that he thought Reagan’s contribution to ending the Cold War was inconsequential.
http://tinyurl.com/cfkwb
Read any one you choose, but these are my favorites:
http://www.reason.com/links/links040505.shtml
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13777
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/herman200503220800.asp
Sirkowski, that gratuitous insult only demonstrates your barbaric nature.
My mother has been dead for many years.
SadieB,
Labor is really the source of all wealth. That true Bunky? Guess what. Go plant an air seed. All the labor in the world and you get zilch. Try fueling your car with air. How bout a good air sandwich, hold the bread.
Semant,
fergeddaboutit. Reagan won the cold war. FDR WWII. Or, after you have rewritten the history books to eliminate any credit for FDR in WWII, we’ll talk about the winner of the cold war: Dutch Reagan. And the Soviet Union is alive and well?????!!!! What, on the planet Zontar? Did Brezhnev and Andropov get resuscitated and teleported ? You must be taking your Marxist history professors seriously!
Dugger , who polished up the handle of the big front door
Dugger;
It must be a very small handle
Though I’m probably a bit late to the debate on this one Frank_D said something [twice] that I thought I needed an opposing viewpoint.
I agree with Frank_D to the point where one cannot force charity upon someone because then it isn’t charity, but Frank_D you seem to arguing for a flat income tax rather than the progressive graduated income tax. The idea of discrimination of the rich for being successful as being unjust is a strawman for two reasons.
1) The veil of ignorance: The idea in a free market system that those who are given ample opportunities [education, connections, experience] which are often bestowed upon people not because of their merit but rather their environment. [Their parents, their neighborhood, the wealth to move to someplace with more opportunity.] There is also the natural talent for success that has nothing to do with merit. One can be born brilliant without any effort. Because life becomes a system of random advantageous chance coupled with hard work, one’s successes should not be worth their effort alone. To make a reasonable system for those who ‘lose’ in such a game of chance a graduated income tax to pay for public programs and services is very reasonable. After all if you make an opulent amount of money what are the odds you would have that salary if you were half as smart or physically disfigured or born in the dangerous slums of a major city? The odds drastically decrease.
2) Personal Property Protection: Ignoring ‘fair’ arguments based on chance we can frame a similar argument based solely on fiscal means. If from a “free market” or objectivist ideal of government we determine that its sole purpose is to protect personal property rights [which you claim are being trampled on by a graduate income tax] and only personal property rights, the question become why should some with a low income and a small collection of wealth pay equally as someone with a large income and a large collection of wealth. If my net worth is the American average ~$80,000 and your net worth is $8,000,000 then to have us pay an equal tax is ridiculous. The loss of your 8 million in assets is significantly larger than my 80 thousand in assets. You rely on government protection to ensure your income and stand to lose more if that protection is nullified than I do, so why should you not have to pay more for that protection. If you own 80% of the system’s wealth and I only 20% it stands to reason that you should pay 80% of the cost to protect the wealth of the system.
While the objectivist [which is more or less what your suggesting] idea of an individualist society based on voluntary charity sounds great in theory the failing is the volunteer part. While a vast number of American’s have reacted generously to help those hit by Katrina there is no moral obligation to do so. The Salvation Army [a Christian organization] threated to pull out of NY if it legalized gay marriage. It is its right as a private organization to do so. If America [as a whole] decides that its services are necessary than America [as a whole] should pay to guarantee that such services are always provided to all American’s in need and not rely on a private organization which is not obligated to help anyone at anytime.
If aid groups decided to ignore New Orleans and not give aid and there was FEMA or National Guard there would be no way for those in need to demand aid, they would be left to rot. We should rely on the empathy of citizens because it can become apathy too quickly. Instead I’m more than comfortable having government be charged with the obligation of aiding all citizens in need.
robot,
Pardon my $0.02. “given ample opportunities” That may be the watershed difference between the left and right (don’t know which you are). My life experience has been that 90% of ’successful’ people 90% EARN what they have. They aren’t given it. All of us, at times are given certain things. Some take advantage and work upward, others waste it. The successuful study harder at school, work extra hours, make smart life decisons, etc. There are failures due to bad luck and pure chance but he/she that puts forth an extra effort almost always gets an extra benefit – and vice versa.
Having said that, I have no problem with the government helping in New Orleans, Alabama and Missippi – a lot. But it should be recognized that that help is a product of the sweat and toil, primarily, of the achievers and doers – not the government.
Dugger
Frank_D, you say that the line, “the forces of evil greed, prejudice, hate have occasionally taken the reigns of power and exerted their darkness over our people” is bogus.
No it’s not. How about in the 1920s and 1930s, when the KKK openly ran many states in the midwest and south? My state, Indiana, had a governor, lieutenant governor, and almost his entire administration as open members of the group. A majority of the state legislators at the time were members of the group.
How about Japanese internment during WWII. Please don’t tell me that that wasn’t a bad thing. What about slavery, McCarthyism, Reaganomics (greed), Jim Crow laws.
Don’t be blinded by the flag. America’s great, but it’s not perfect.
Dugger:
Highly doubtful. And doesn’t explain our president. Hasn’t worked an honest day in his life. Had everything handed to him. Dodged meaningful military service, was a C student in college at Yale, was denied by the U. of Texas business school but somehow was accepted into the MBA program at Harvard, the most prestigious in the nation. His only jobs ever were given to him by his daddy and his daddy’s friends.
Now, President Clinton, that was a man who earned everything he got. He was a poor kid in rural Arkansas, his parents were divorced, he got through college and law school as a decent student. He’s done some things wrong in his life, but no one can take away his drive.
The first President Bush was the same way. Navy pilot in WWII, became wealthy of his own making, worked his way up through the government, serving stints as ambassador, eventually becoming a UN ambassador, vice president and president. That’s an honorable man, not a man who made his fortune off his daddy’s name.
Sure, there are people who are given fortune, and most of them work on their own to futher expand their wealth. George W. Bush is not one of them, and that’s why he doesn’t even represent the hard-working wealthy. He’s the president of the Paris Hiltons and Ivanka Trumps of this country.
Dugger,
It shouldn’t be surprising that I don’t disagree with you in most of what you said. I agree that most of those who are successful are so because they have worked and toiled and created their own opportunities. [Ignoring those with inherited "merit/value" for the moment.] My own parents worked hard from being -$10,000 when they first got married to being upper middle class today and it was because they both worked hard for what they have.
Part of my point was that they were given an education by the state [or by their parents, or relatives, or scholarship] at least through secondary education. True they certainly didn’t squander the opportunity the way so many others do, but the point is that they didn’t earn those initial opportunities. More importantly they were both able to excel through school because of hard work AND a natural intelligence that again they didn’t earn. They earned the knowledge, they earned the jobs, salaries, and promotions, but they didn’t earn the building blocks, the foundation, none of us do. We either win [or lose] the natural lottery and so in what sense do I get to call it fair that earned the latter opportunities fairly if I got an advantage at birth? Which leads to the question are we truly moral exempt from helping those who lose the natural lottery?
pionar,
I made my point on the basis of my (long) life experience, which I concede, proves nothing. Vice versa (the example of Bush proves zilch about the macro point). I think of going to college and seeing the med students working harder than anybody else and then interning and working horrible hours. Finally, one day they became ‘rich’, per Al Gore’s “winners of life’s lottery”. BS. They earned it.
robot,
Absolutely. Agree. We are all born with certain characteristics they may make it easier or harder to win in life. Or lead to varying levels of wealth. Likewise we lead our lives, consciously, in a way that greatly impacts the exploitation of those natural varying attributes. Still our society provides to all an education, a social safety net, and a free society in which to live and strive. It is no accident that, despite many other disadvantages, immigrants come here, work hard and succeed. Most of us, the huge majority of us – IMO, are what we are, rich or poor, smart or dumb, moral or immoral, due to our own decisions and actions. Not because of what the government does or doesn’t do for us. And importantly, the governemnt actually does nothing. It takes, at the point of gun in effect, from private citizens and gives to other private citizens. We have to have government and it is a good thing, but it is useful to always remember that point about government. I believe it is too easy for politicians to promise to give people things because they want or need it. But they are actually seizing those goods and services from producing, toiling citizens.
Dugger
Dugger,
Remember that while Government is ‘extorting’ you with one hand it is shielding you with the other one. Government does produce one invaluable service; protection. Without its protection if I have a bigger mod, or a better gun, all the goods and services you produce can be taken from you at the end of MY gun, which in turn can be taken from me by someone else’s gun. I’ll agree that government doesn’t always aid in that endeavor and often wastes its riches on fruitless endeavors, but it does serve and important service, even from an Objectivist’s viewpoint.
That said we are who we are, but those who are poor [for reasons other than laziness] are so through no fault of their own. Those are are industrious but unfortunate [anyone in Louisiana or Mississippi who couldn't afford insurance and just lost everything] do not deserve to die or suffer for reasons beyond their control. Those who have benefited are forced to aid those who have not benefited. Although this is forcing charity, I see it as justified force.
-nixon
Robot,
Don’t disagree except perhaps I am more cynical about the overall responsibility of people for their own condition. Often one can make his/her own luck. But we could never prove that either way. And I agree on the necessity of government and the necessity to have enforcement power – the gun-, but I do believe the governemnt gives nothing – it takes away from one person and gives to another. That portion of the equation always troubles me (but if I were Pres, I would do it).
Dugger
pionar: I’m pretty sure Oliver was referring to the Presidency, and that’s why said it was bogus…
I’m beginning to think that O W stands for O ver the top, W ay over the top.