There's a difference between being legitimately at a disadvantage (i.e. grew up in the inner-city into a single-mother family) and being a malingerer (i.e. 5 generations of your family have been on welfare with no lasting meaningful employment going back 75 years in your family tree). I live in a rural area where the "poor" people are mostly of the latter group... I work in a local pharmacy, am very active in the community, and serve in various groups on campus who's main purpose is to help kids who are truly disadvantaged. Just because I lay it all out in a blunt and not so pleasing fashion doesn't mean I don't know what I'm talking about.
True being poor is not worse than being middle class but being a malingering piece of garbage is far better than both... and yes, if you don't contribute anything to society by faking illness and REFUSING (see: making a choice) not to seek gainful employment, then you are a strain on society and need to be cut-off immediately. If you were raised in a poor household with significant barriers to overcome, then I respect you and am not minimizing your situation in anyway ... but don't think there aren't other people out there who fake being in your disposition just so they can lay back and have their bills paid on those of us who do decide to contribute. I see these people every single day and have ample proof of their immoral practices so don't tell me there aren't any.
Politics? No thanks... I'd have to bow down to the alter of liberalism/socialism (democratic party) or phony neo-conservativism (republican party - that ironically is much more - and in my mind, even worse than - liberalism/socialism than any respectable form of limited government conservativism).
Go out and vote for your Obama... I'm sure he'll be a fantastic president. I mean, it's so awesome how he can give a speech without sounding like a complete *****... that must mean he's qualified to hold the most powerful office in the entire world. Forget the fact that he's a phony ward politician from the most politically corrupt county in the entire world (Cook... I mean Crook County, Illinois). You are all complete fools for falling for this joke called Barack Obama... sure he may be better than John McCain and GWB (and honestly, who wouldn't be?) but at the end of the day he's another huckster with his own ties to special interests, big corporations, and anyone who can advance himself and his causes (not yours). You think he's looking out for you and yours?
And like I said, sure maybe he will do a better job than McCain but to me I see almost no difference between the two. Both of them are completely phony to me... they are both plucked out of the same nest of villains within the Washington, D.C. power structure. These days there is absolutely no chance for an honest man or women to seek office... corruption is a requisite for national office. Without it the media will ignore you and the 2-party complex will ignore and marginalize you (or worse) for not advancing the status quo.
The ignorance of the American people is going to lead this country right into the ground. As sure as I'm sitting here with this bottle of Belgian-owned Budweiser, this country is going down a long, steep hill into the oblivion that all greedy and misguided nations in written history eventually found themselves in.
I encourage everyone to not vote for either of the two clowns running for office. Don't be another one of the sheep following the unbelievably corrupt 2-parties into the paddock.
Just ask yourself this question: "Does Obama/McCain really care about me and my family or are they both held up in the media, the government, and powerful special interests because they will both help to maintain the status quo?" Does being a war veteran half a century ago necessarily make you a patriot today -- regardless of how often you change your official stance on very serious issues just to please the prevailing power structure and procure support for your acquisition of power? Does being an articulate, good-looking guy necessarily make you a good leader?"
In both cases, these men rose to the top of the power structure because they took short-cuts and engaged in dishonest tactics that have no place in a society that is headed anywhere but in steep decline... that's the only way they got to be the remaining two candidates because that is the only strategy that is even remotely successful in our two-party system (the exact setup Jefferson warned us not to move towards over 200 years ago for these exact reasons)... In regards to corrupt political structures, a major influence of western philosophy and democracy once observed of corrupt governments that "honesty is, for the most part, less profitable than dishonesty" (Plato). Even a guy who lounged around in a toga all day thousands of years ago has a better analysis of what is going on in America than the average college-educated citizen.
And so the disadvantaged will vote for Obama because he promises a better future and the rich and privileged will vote for McCain because he promises to keep things they way they are. The irony of discussing the election in a thread such as this is that the middle class will continue to be squeezed into a smaller and smaller segment until the class distinction in America is even more extreme or no longer there --- there will simply be the haves and have-nots (the result of what McCain wants) or just the have-nots (the result of what people like Obama want)... the transformation may not take place in 4 or 8 years but I doubt any surveyor with decent knowledge of history (given he is not an ideologue) will argue that we aren't headed that way because both candidates represent segments of society that are decidedly anti-freedom and most certainly not concerned with the needs of the average farmer in Bettandorf, Iowa or the single mother in the housing projects of Los Angeles County. Sadly they both be fooled by these candidates and therein lies the problem.
Keep thinking one of the two represent what's best for a country slowly dying from a cancer of grossly immoral fiscal irresponsibility, overly-zealous foreign policy, an increasingly self-entitled populace who eat McDonalds three times a day, smoke five packs a week, and drink their liver into a cirrhotic mess and then turn around with their newly hired jackass from NY Law with a law suit for not fixing them... Keep ignoring the growing generation of kids who care more about American Idol and Paris Hilton than any of the matters I just brushed upon.
Ignorance is bliss until it catches up to you--then you look for a savior to fix it all ... too bad by then its too late and all the good people have no shot... the society has already devolved and all the people seen as saviors are nothing more than what the bible calls wolves in sheep-skin...
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitorhe speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and wears their faces and their arguments. He appeals to the baseness that lies deep within the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nationhe works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the cityhe infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared."
- Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman Orator (42 B.C.)
No I don't want to debate on this. Go ahead and post your reply anyway if you'd like... I'll still read them but as you can see I get a little too "riled up" about politics. I'm tired.
