^^^ That's the question I keep coming back to. We need a roles-and-missions debate for the military, because it is too big, but that's because of the post-WWII power vacuum. The most likely next in line is China, and I'm pretty sure most of you wouldn't like how they'd run things.
Many years back IIRC you openly discussed considering applying for bankruptcy. If you had received a big medical bill at the time, like say being diagnosed with cancer, or a partner had fallen pregnant, would you have rejected any support available? You seem to be making the case in this thread that people who don't "deserve" support getting it is a reason to not offer that support to anyone. For plenty of us however the exact opposite case holds more sway, that the people who do need support receiving it are worth it existing.
because you're not spinning it to your advantage. Pit one against the other and you end up with cool toys!
are you fucking kidding me? This is wordforge you're talking about. Half of them probably have a lifetime supply of eco-friendly chopsticks on order already.
This isn't trolling. When you're in this thread disparaging anyone who ends up in a bad situation as having fucked up it's worth pointing out that almost anyone is a few bad situations away from ruin.
No, your "gotcha" moment could only be had if I was somehow denying culpability for my own circumstances, which I have not done.
Whilst, in the preceding paragraph, demanding more oversight of folks' circumstances - and thus control over their lives - than the "statists" you and Lanz are railing against.
I have no doubt whatsoever that if the US steps back, China and Russia will step up. And as Lanz (correctly) points out regularly, the results will not be good. Nevertheless, the US is not the "good guy" we always like to pretend. I was born and raised with that propaganda, and I have to admit it was extremely difficult for me to admit that the US was sometimes as blatantly the "bad guy" as the Soviets have been. I remember back in 1979 and 1980, thinking the US was innocent and the Iranians were evil. (Think W's "axis of evil" line.) I knew nothing at the time about how the US had intervened to overthrow an elected prime minister, just for the sake of money and oil, leaving power in the hands of a brutal dictator. To this day I cannot and will not defend what the Iranians did between November 1979 and January 1981, but at least I understand it. They were dead wrong, but so was the US. They lost the moral high ground by the hostage crisis, but we never had it in that situation. That's just one example. Think Vietnam. Think Iraq. Think so many overt and covert operations in the name of "defending our national interests" (which, it needs to be noted, is not at all the same thing as "defending our country"). My point is that the US might be blocking the Chinese and the Russians from doing equally bad (or even worse) things, but that the US is losing its soul in doing it. When you have a big stick, it is very hard to use it only for truly just causes. Where the US is at its best (which is still far from perfect...) is in defense. But whenever we try "nation building" or "defending our interests" or "fighting communism", we think the ends justify the means and we forget that that simply isn't true. One of the very few American military interventions of my life that I now actively support (which is not to say that I always saw things this way, but I didn't always understand the implications of what we were doing) was the invasion of Afghanistan. But even there, it was not all black and white. If the US hadn't been up to a lot of very debatable stuff in the Middle East for a long time, 9/11 might never have happened. And even if it had, what we should have done is go in there and smash Al Qaeda flat, as well as any Afghan forces that tried to oppose us (without deliberately overthrowing the entire government of the country), then pull out and let them deal with the mess they created by hosting Al Qaeda in the first place. When we tried "nation building", we simply made ourselves a bunch more enemies. And we are about as far from making Afghanistan into a stable, safe, free country now as we were in 2002. If the US isn't as present militarily in the world as it has been, and countries like Russia and China cause troubles, we can intervene defensively for our allies (and I am not talking about puppet regimes purposely installed so we could call them "allies", like in Vietnam), in situations where the international community, at least among Western powers, will recognize that it is justified. But when half of even the EU members are opposed to what we are doing, such as the invasion of Iraq, then we are probably not simply acting in self-defense. I would also be in favor of maintaining a foreign military presence only in those countries who actually want us there. We are in Germany, Japan and Korea as the result of our military interventions there. But that was two generations ago. Do they still want us there? I would say: let their governments decide, and if they want us to go, we go. I would actively invite them to debate it and come to a decision, making it abundantly clear from the start that we would abide by their decision. I'm all for foreign aid. But military presence and intervention should be used very sparingly, including (I am almost tempted to say: "especially") covert operations. When we do that, we are acting the same way, on a global scale, as the police in the US too often acts on a local scale. If the police wasn't a quasi-military force that believes itself above the law, it could and would be an extremely useful tool for domestic crime. But the "big stick" too many police forces now have is why we are faced with the current crisis and so many people thinking "ACAB". In the same way, if the US military wasn't the "global police force" any more, then we might actually be able to defend ourselves and our allies in a way that is consistent with the values we pretend to have.
Well, I didn't know this but maybe it's worth taking a step back and thinking through where that leaves your view of the "average" person needing help, whether employed or not. I'm inclined to assume your current mindset reflects how you've always behaved in practise, that you've earned, saved, been frugal. If you ended up in that position despite doing all of those things does that not give you pause before making such sweeping statements? Or did you make mistakes of your own? I certainly have. In no way does a free market necessarily lead to a fair and equitable wage climate. Markets crash, fluctuate, become distorted by monopolies, reflect the size and saturation of certain sectors and generally do a great many things which in no sense even try to even up the power balance between employer and employee. They aren't supposed to support the little guy or make things fair, they exist in order to allow companies to generate money outside of their direct business model to invest and expand. In turn those investing expect a share of the rewards. Nowhere in there are those employed by the company mentioned or considered as such. Their worth is measured by how much their efforts make for the company and how replaceable they are. That means the huge majority in that situation serve rather than being served by the process. Most people's interests lie in the opposite direction to those of the main players. Hence we see athletes, executives and various other high profile people earning obscenely more than hundreds of their colleagues combined for slightly more, the same, or even less, actual effort.
I am not claiming to be perfect or demanding a special privilege to avoid the consequences of my choices.
Oh, so you weren't actually going to help them even after seeing with your own eyes that they made no bad decisions? I mean, I guess we knew you were a cunt before, but this puts the cherry on it.
It's not up to me who gets what. More a question of my inconsequential opinions on who should be asking, what standards of personal conduct should be expected of people. Don't worry, I expect society will continue rewarding stupidly irresponsible behavior no matter what I have to say about it. So the tiny, miniscule percentage who never in their lives had a chance to avoid bad outcomes will still be covered.
Me, out here literally pulling my hair out ABOUT the crusade by Republicans to ensure one-party minoritarian rule ad infinitum Lanz: "Why do you want one party rule?" Me out here being legislated out of fucking existence by one party - the one who CLAIMS to be the party that stands for individual liberties and personal autonomy and a small, not interventionist government, but they are obsessed about what I do or don't do with my goddamn dick - while the other party twaddles about debating bipartisanship leaving me to scream into the void that someone should do something Lanz: "Well clearly you are a statist." I mean, it's like trying to argue with the Babylon Bee, WTFyagonnado?
But that's not your argument. Here's your argument: Person A is lazy as fuck and quit his job to stay home and play video games, now he is hungry. Person B had to quit her job because their mom is dying of cancer and there's no one else to give her 24/7 care, now they both are hungry. Person C was injured in a not-at-fault car accident and broke his back and can't get hired for any job he can physically due and now his family is running out of food and rent money. In Albert's world, ALL these people are shit out of luck because Person A is lazy and we can't have that motherfucker freeloading.
Better a hundred innocent people get fucked over than one "undeserving" person get away with something, right?
Would you say those earning less than a living wage, despite working full time, are demanding special privilege in wanting to be able such a basic life choice as raising kids?
It's not a gotcha. I've been in similar situations, and the only difference between times when I've been close to ruin, and doing well and being extremely comfortable, have largely been down to good/bad luck in the timing of opportunities that have come along.
from wapo, Miami upscale restaurant: I think it's time for this country to stop treating restaurants as factories. I ate better and cheaper at mom-and-pop places in France where the owner was the waiter and head chef. Yeah they only had 5 tables and when they were full, that was it for the night. Somehow they managed to stay in business.
