welfare (thread turned into Y.a. neos v paleos argument)

[David S]

Depends on what you mean by welfare. Is Medicare/Medicaid included under that label? If so that would make individual welfare by far the biggest financially.

[David S]

Whoa there. Two Libertarians beating each other up. That's not good.

Being the voice of moderation that I am please allow me to moderate.

Lighten up guys we have far more in common than not. If we allow ourselves to be divided then our party's 1% of the vote becomes two parties each with 1/2% of the vote. We can have differences of opinion and still be friends.

[David S]

What ever the LP does policywise won't change until it changes its public image.

Well, I think the two are at least slightly correlated.  The Libertarian Party's public image is likely to improve if it stops talking about wanting to implement policies that 99% of voters think are insane.

That's what drives me insane. What Libertarians support is Individual freedom, personal responsibility and government limited to its constitutional duties. Boy thats really insane isn't it? More specifically we believe in free speech, the right to keep and bear arms, privacy rights, property rights, due process rights, habeas  corpus and all other rights identified in the Bill of Rights or elsewhere in the constitution. Wow that's really far out there isn't it? We also believe that taxes could be dramatically lower if the federal government stuck to its constitutional duties, as mandated by the 10th amendment. Holy cow! Call out the men in white coats!

The things that probably get us labeled as whackos are believing that people's sexual preference is their own business, not the governments and that people should be free to decide what to eat, drink, smoke, inhale or otherwise ingest. And if I'm not mistaken, Gabu those are things that you support as well,... wacko.

[David S]

That's what drives me insane. What Libertarians support is Individual freedom, personal responsibility and government limited to its constitutional duties. Boy thats really insane isn't it? More specifically we believe in free speech, the right to keep and bear arms, privacy rights, property rights, due process rights, habeas  corpus and all other rights identified in the Bill of Rights or elsewhere in the constitution. Wow that's really far out there isn't it? We also believe that taxes could be dramatically lower if the federal government stuck to its constitutional duties, as mandated by the 10th amendment. Holy cow! Call out the men in white coats!

The things that probably get us labeled as whackos are believing that people's sexual preference is their own business, not the governments and that people should be free to decide what to eat, drink, smoke, inhale or otherwise ingest. And if I'm not mistaken, Gabu those are things that you support as well,... wacko.

If I tell you the truth, which is that 99% of voters think the Libertarian Party is insane, and then you retort by trying to convince me that it's not, I think this quite fairly underscores the Libertarian Party's problems, really.

And sure, the stuff above isn't crazy.  But I recall the time that the Libertarian Party tried to argue that the income tax was unconstitutional because it was slavery.  That's the sort of stuff people find crazy.  The Libertarian Party seems to be in total denial that it supports or has supported anything that the general public would be unable to stomach, which is I think its major problem.  Far too many Libertarians think that they just need people to know who they are and then they'll get elected everywhere.

Are you saying we are insane or that the public perception of us is that we are? Sounds like you're saying we are nutz. But from our perspective the R's and D's  are crazy.  Lets see didn't one of your guys recently write a bill to draft everyone from age 18 to 42, male and female? (1/3 of the population) That sounds a little nutzy to me. And didn't John Kerry say he wanted national service to be an "obligation of full citizenship", (as if there were some sort of partial citizenship today) That sounds pretty crazy too. And aren't the D's the ones who have proposed one anti-gun proposal after another? And as for the R's well they got us into a war that has nothing to do with our security and at the same time have  managed to not capture the guy they say is responsible for 911. Plus the R's in concert with the D's have raised the national debt to $8 trillion and the unfunded future liabilities to $60 trillion.  Call me silly but that seems kinda crazy too.

The bigger problem is that most of the American people wouldn't know the constitution if it bit them on the ass. And many people subscribe to the Opeboan philosophy that government should provide everything for everyone and tax the hell out of someone else to pay for it.  We don't believe in that and we refuse to vote for people who do. Does that make us "batsh**t" crazy?

[David S]

Saying that income tax should not be paid on wages is definitely crazy.

And yet the United States existed for more years without an income tax than it has existed with an income tax.

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No one said we should ignore people in need. We should be willing to voluntarily help our fellow man. But giving government the power to take money from people who earned it and give it to someone else is a different matter.  Think of Opebo's claim that government should provide "generous welfare benefits for those who choose not to work." In other words, people who work should have their hard earned money taken from them and given to lazy people who don't want to work. Does that seem fair?

[David S]

In other words, people who work should have their hard earned money taken from them and given to lazy people who don't want to work. Does that seem fair?

No.  But on that note, would it seem fair for someone who tries very hard to earn a living but simply can't catch a break to simply be thrown to the wayside and ignored because he or she had unfortunate circumstances in life?

The attitude among many people that all citizens on welfare are simply lazy bums who don't want to work is quite disgusting, frankly - no offense.

Not all of them are but some of them are. I think you are a generous person. What makes you think there would not be enough voluntary contributions to fund it for people who are truly in need?   Why does it have to be the government that does it? Do you think other people will only give money when forced to do so by government?