I too have thought about this. I still raise the question of the territories tho. What would have happened when the western territories wanted to become states? I guess the citizens of each of these territories could decide for themselves whether to join the union or the confederacy but there still is the potential for war here. Certainly the leaders of the south did not regard slavery in a positive light. Nevertheless, the slave power was very powerful. It's just really hard to say how slavery would have eventually been eliminated. THAT it would have happened is pretty clear. HOW it would have happened is more difficult. This is certainly true. Alexis deToqueville noted this in his book Democracy In America.

I too have thought about this. I still raise the question of the territories tho. What would have happened when the western territories wanted to become states? I guess the citizens of each of these territories could decide for themselves whether to join the union or the confederacy but there still is the potential for war here. Certainly the leaders of the south did not regard slavery in a positive light. Nevertheless, the slave power was very powerful. It's just really hard to say how slavery would have eventually been eliminated. THAT it would have happened is pretty clear. HOW it would have happened is more difficult. This is certainly true. Alexis deToqueville noted this in his book Democracy In America.

btw....the blog is up and running again. well this is a powerful argument and believe me I feel the force of it. my only justification is that the politicians who passed this legislation intended it for people like me. I also intend to take social security one day even tho I wish the program were eliminated. I can't see any way around this.

It's purely an economic decision. It helps our bottom line. I would write my legislator and tell him to nix the program in a second if I thought I it would work.

the funny thing is......the politicians who pass such legislation intend them to be used by middle class folk. The same thing happened recently with the SCHIP program. It was meant for people who were quite well off. I never sneer at people. I do feel that wealth redistribution is immoral. Noone has offered any reasons to the contrary. I am not entirely at peace with us taking WIC. Frankly, I just look at our bottom line.....and if they offer it, we take it. but I ain't entirely happy about it.

I suspect slavery would have been eliminated without a war; it just would have taken longer. are you taking into consideration the 600,000 plus lives lost? of course, Lincoln had no way of knowing this.

the sad fact is that it is the very welfare you advocate that causes these problems. Welfare traps people and holds them down. The War on Poverty has created more poverty than it eliminated. actually it created a whole different kind of poverty. The poverty we see now is generation after generation of the same people on poverty. They grow used to it as a way of life. Welfare makes people comfortable in their poverty. That is a major problem with welfare. George Will writes; But no one knows how to stop it [poverty]. Anyway, spending at least $6.6 trillion on poverty-related programs in the four decades since President Johnson declared the "war on poverty" is not "nothing." In fact, it has purchased a new paradigm of poverty . That new "paradigm" is what I am talking about.

Yes we qualify for all those things and I don't think we are the better for them. Since the tax code takes from the rich, it is taking money from the most productive members of society. That money is then processed thru a hugely inefficient bureaucracy and given to people who often don't need it. We just bought a brand new house. why do we need WIC? but since they meant if for us, we take it. also....now that we have WIC the temptation is huge to waste the stuff we were given since we never paid for it. I just found a full bottle of milk that our little boy never drank. Oh well.....who cares......we never paid for it. just dump, fill it up again, and waste some more. oh....and the more kids we have, the more milk we get from the govt teat. and we are having kids fast and furious:auto::auto: The perverse incentives this program creates are terrible.

In my class today, we made two columns. The first column was called "force em". The second column was "let em". These are the two options that Lincoln had in 1861 for dealing with the South. He could FORCE the south back into the union or he could LET them become their own sovereign nation. As we added up the advantages disadvantages of either side, we seemed to agree that "let em" was the more advantageous course of action. What do you think? The advantages of "let em" are: trade could continue between the two countries; war could be avoided; the fugitive slave law could be eliminated; the south could get rid of the unfair tariffs; The advantages of "force em" are: slavery could be eliminated; the country would be kept one;

now really now....did I ever assert that charity = theft? my position is that when one person forcibly takes money from another person, that is theft no matter what he does with the money once he has taken it. giving it to a starving person does not justify the theft. nor does the fact that duly elected officials due the stealing. It's still theft. we get WIC. :001_smile: Frankly, I want to eliminate all suffering on the entire globe. but we have to be realistic about what is the best way to do this. I would support some kind of negative income tax as Charles Murray suggests here. This plan gets rid of the bureaucracy, keeps people from utter destitution, keeps the govt from trying to manipulate society via welfare payments, provides a greater role for private charity to operate which is always preferable to govt "charity" places a limit on the amount people will get.

oh, I get you now. I agree completely. I thot you were advocating some kind of govt regulation of corporations to stop this. I agree it is unethical. I just don't think the govt should try to do something about it. I do not believe the business owners of this land are obligated to provide people with the standard of living they desire. do you?

I think the point was that charity is voluntary or it's not charity. When the govt reaches into my pocket and gives it to someone else, they are not, for all that, charitable or generous. They are thieves. to the best of my knowledge, no one in our govt claimed that Iraq had nukes. he did? where?

I guess I just don't see what right anyone else has to tell a board of directors how they spend their money. I might not like it....but it's their business. If people don't want to work there, they leave and go elsewhere.

I don't know that anyone defends the Iraq invasion claiming that the 9-11 attackers were from Iraq. I agree. if we fight them, I don't expect them to cheer us. why catch Bin Laden? the guy is holed up in a cave somewhere. we need to fight the war on terror. Bin Laden is only a small part of that. Right now, Al Qaeda is saying that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror and I think we should take them at their word and fight them there.

First, you are only the second liberal I know that supports the FairTax. Excellent. but why do you feel guilt over that?