Why do you feel socialism is bad?

[GodLovesTheSpek]

Section 8 Paragraph 1. Promote or provide? Apparent contradiction? No.

Promote and provide does not mean OWN. However a government can promote by providing ideas to do the promotion.

 

[John21652]

The General Welfare.
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1930’s 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s !!
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes.
Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking …
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We ate cakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drink with sugar in it, but we weren’t overweight because…
WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem .
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms…WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents .
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!
Football teams had trials and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!

 

[ComputerGeek25]

It is a moral obligation.

It is a moral obligation, however, one can argue the government also has an equal moral obligation to be good stewards of monies collected from taxation. Currently, this is not happening, especially in the US.

 

[ComputerGeek25]

Section 8 Paragraph 1. Promote or provide? Apparent contradiction? No.

Promote and provide does not mean OWN. However a government can promote by providing ideas to do the promotion.

Thanks for reminding me and others of what the constitution says. It’s not that hard to see that the Federal government shouldn’t be the sole provider of monies.

 

[ComputerGeek25]

Promote does not mean “own”.

Welfare does not mean “own”.

No one is advocating that anyone abandon the sick, poor, tortured, homeless, starving, oppressed, etc. Instead, some believe that by leveraging certain social ills and perceptions (those with an agenda to destroy the Constitution) government can ram through total government ownership in the name of “general welfare”, “help”, etc. Governmental suicide. Own the money, own the health, own the charity, own the banks, own the automobile manufacturers, what’s next? Own the religion? Own the race? Own life and death? All false and evil. A certain socialist party in mid-Europe had that idea during the 30’s and 40’s.

It wasn’t charity that was desired.

The government as stated in the constitution should promote the general welfare. How?

1. Encourage people to give freely of their time or charity of choice.
2. Tax breaks for those who give freely beyond a certain percentage of their total wealth or income. (tax breaks are already available for personal donations)
3. By not overtaxing the people to the point where they can no longer afford to feed themselves let alone others. When that happens, the private charitable sector will be decimated.
4. By not creating and using inefficient bureaucracy to trap the money within the government which then decides when and what, if any, can be given to the unfortunate.
5. By encouraging people to do their own research and find those efficient charities which have a very high “direct to the people” cents per dollar. This action will introduce people to taking an active (charity), rather than a passive (taxes) role in charity. People will be giving to Jesus rather than a socialist government.

Excellent post.

re: #5 - One reason to donate money and write it off your taxes is so that the government gets less of it to waste (especially in ways that I don’t approve of), and more of the people in need get it.

One thing I’d like to add, that I hinted at 2 posts up. The government can also “promote” things that are morally questionable or bad - i.e. abortion, war, the death penalty. Social Security is a giant ponzi scheme. Pork barrel spending. People are chronic abusers of welfare, even though they are able bodied to do work. Our K-12 education performs poorly, but all we do is “throw money at it” and still not get better results. In order to pay off it’s debts, the government can just print money, which causes inflation, which, can cause, render more people unable to feed themselves.

How is all this moral and “promoting general welfare?” I say it isn’t…

 

[ComputerGeek25]

The fallacy here is that taxation is theft. This is contrary to what I read in the CCC, that it is morally obligatory to pay taxes. Further, I read that Our Divine Savior said to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s.thereby implying that taxation is not theft.

And St. Paul said in scripture that those who are unwilling to work should be unwilling to eat.

I guess that means we have to rethink our welfare system then.

 

[sedonaman]

Well since we’re currently in a health care shortage, we need more for everyone to get some. Does nationalizing health care create more health care?

In fact, when something is in high demand and the price becomes “free”, demand explodes. In any event, you never hear any advocate of socialized medicine talk about where the additional supply of health care services are going to come from.

 

[sedonaman]

It is a moral obligation.

By whose moral standard?

 

[sedonaman]

Did James Madison establish any social programs?

No. In fact, George Washington, upon leaving office, considered one of his greatest achievements as president to be that the average citizen had little or no contact with the national government. Clearly, “welfare” in the context of the preamble meant something besides a welfare state.

 

[Seeker100]

By whose moral standard?

We are not here to do our will but the will of the Lord’s! Let His Kingdom come!!!

 

[tjm190]

Of course not. The fact is that it is the duty and prerogative of the Congress of the United States of America to enact the programs which will promote the general welfare. Specifically, Congress is granted authority under Article I, section 8 of the Constitution to “pay the debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.” And the United States Supreme Court in United States v. Butler, 56 S. Ct. 312, 297 U.S. 1, 80 L. Ed. 477 (1936), adopted Hamilton’s interpretation of the General Welfare Clause, which gave Congress broad powers to spend federal money. It also established that determination of the general welfare would be left to the discretion of Congress.

There are programs that benefit everyone, such as military spending and infrastructure creation, and there are programs that benefit only certain groups, such as welfare.

It is quite easy to tell that the authors of the constitution for in favor of the former- you have yet to present evidence that showed they were in favor of the latter.

 

[ComputerGeek25]

There are programs that benefit everyone, such as military spending and infrastructure creation, and there are programs that benefit only certain groups, such as welfare.

It is quite easy to tell that the authors of the constitution for in favor of the former- you have yet to present evidence that showed they were in favor of the latter.

And they only benefit a certain group at the expense of others.

 

[Seeker100]

There are programs that benefit everyone, such as military spending and infrastructure creation, and there are programs that benefit only certain groups, such as welfare.

It is quite easy to tell that the authors of the constitution for in favor of the former- you have yet to present evidence that showed they were in favor of the latter.

Oh Yes!!! Lots of money for bombs, missles, guns, advanced weapons systems etc. Lots of money to kill, mame, rape, torture! Lots of money to invade, steel and occupy!! No problem in that!

But oh boy try and put money to educated people or give universal health care. Oh no! That would not help everyone!!!

So sickening!

Jesus said, “What you do to the least of these you do to Me.”

Even from a selfish perspective; when your neighbour is educated and thus is more likely to find gainful employment, and when your neighbour is not losing his home, farm or business to pay for a family member health bills; then it is good for you as your neighbour can buy from you and others around you. It makes the society strong.

We are all interconnected. Love Jesus in the uneducated and the sick. Support Obama’s social programs!

 

[sedonaman]

We are not here to do our will but the will of the Lord’s! Let His Kingdom come!!!

Huh?

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

It depends on how it is implemented.

I believe the welfare system that we have today is not good.

Did St Paul say in 2 Thessalonians 3;
6Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us.
7For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you,
8nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you;
9not because we do not have the right to this, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you, so that you would follow our example.
10For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either.
11For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies.
12Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread.

 

[sedonaman]

Oh Yes!!! Lots of money for bombs, missles, guns, advanced weapons systems etc. Lots of money to kill, mame, rape, torture! Lots of money to invade, steel and occupy!! No problem in that!

…!

You forgot lots of money to pay tribute and appease.

 

[ComputerGeek25]

It depends on how it is implemented.

I believe the welfare system that we have today is not good.

Did St Paul say in 2 Thessalonians 3;
6Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us.
7For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you,
8nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you;
9not because we do not have the right to this, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you, so that you would follow our example.
10For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either.
11For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies.
12Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread.

 

[CPA2]

Private business is a smart organization. The owner/manager has the authority to change the incentives and disincentives. He can change the corporate culture.

The government is a “stupid organization (e.g. IRS).” The people in the organization may be smart (e.g. state university), but the organization will be forever stupid. Why? Top management does not have the flexibility or the authority to change the incentives and disincentives. In short, government is a “stupid organization” because there are no incentives to improve the organization.

I made up the words, “stupid organization.” I make observations and then I make up words to describe my observations. Guess I will need to explain my thinking.

You may remember the prisoner’s dilemma from economics. How do you get people to work for the good of the organization instead for their own best self-interest? Force is one way (e.g. Mafia). Another way is to appeal to a higher interest (e.g. religion).

Neither of those ways worked in my business. Therefore, I appealed to my employees’ best self-interest. I had 6 jewelers on a salary. They put out very little work. Therefore, I put my jewelers on commission. The four lazy jewelers quit. The 2 good jewelers stayed. It was a win-win situation. The two jewelers on commission repaired more jewelry than six jewelers did when they were on salary. The wait time for repairs went from three weeks to less than a week!

The next time the common man tells me that a person with a college degree has no common sense, I will agree with him. I will point out that there is a difference between schooling and education. There are many people with little formal schooling who are well educated. On the other hand, there are many people with college degrees who have no education.

Not everyone’s elevator goes to the top floor. I work with some of these people, and I admire them because they give 100%. Public universities are another matter. I classify these institutions of higher learning as stupid organizations. It is my belief that no one can improve a stupid organization if there is no incentive for improvement.

For example, XYZ State University employs a lot of nice, intelligent people. However, XYZ is a stupid organization. XYZ University does not look on the business side of anything. Committees run the university “in the spirit of compromise.” Committees do not follow the KISS principle.

XYZ University gets an A+ for confusion. Online registration is an example. How about online frustration? It took me 50 minutes for me to register online. The first time I got online, the system threw me out because I took too long to look up course numbers. The second time I registered for 6 courses. I only got one course. The college of business cannot do anything because they are locked out of the system until registration ends. I was locked out of 5 courses because I did not have the prerequisites. Do prerequisites matter if I want to audit the courses? I am locked out of one accounting course because I did not take an undergraduate course in statistics. My graduate course in statistics at XYZ University did not count. Oh, I forgot to tell you. The entire system went down after only being up 55 minutes!

I never made these stupid logic errors when I was in business. I tested any new service before I offered it to the public. My take on all of this is that organizations are “smart or stupid” based on incentives or the lack of incentives. Incentives count.

 

[tjm190]

Oh Yes!!! Lots of money for bombs, missles, guns, advanced weapons systems etc. Lots of money to kill, mame, rape, torture! Lots of money to invade, steel and occupy!! No problem in that!

But oh boy try and put money to educated people or give universal health care. Oh no! That would not help everyone!!!

So sickening!

Jesus said, “What you do to the least of these you do to Me.”

Even from a selfish perspective; when your neighbour is educated and thus is more likely to find gainful employment, and when your neighbour is not losing his home, farm or business to pay for a family member health bills; then it is good for you as your neighbour can buy from you and others around you. It makes the society strong.

We are all interconnected. Love Jesus in the uneducated and the sick. Support Obama’s social programs!

Sid has falsely claimed that the founding fathers supported social programs. That is what I was discussing- your statement is unrelated to that.

I’m still waiting on an explanation as to how nationalizing health care will make more of it in a way incentives could not.

 

[sidbrown]

By whose moral standard?

By the moral standard and authority of the Roman Catholic Church.