I have a deal for Samuelson mini-junior.
We'll let you call social security and medicare welfare, but you must also call defense spending industrial welfare. That's half of discretionary spending, and there's really nothing discretionary about it. It's as much an entitlement as anything. Deal?

Is Mr. Samuelson (or his parents or relatives) going to give up his welfare? If these are welfare, they should be means tested and denied to all “high income” people.

Yeah, I have to say that the word "welfare" does not carry any pejorative connotations to me. Oh well.

The question is not whether it's welfare or it's social insurance. The question is whether these are good programs or not. We can have semantic debates all we want, but when two terms actually pick out the same object, there is really no point.

What percentage did the average family spend in 1956 on food ?

Government spending is government spending. 

In 1956, it was channeled differently.  Defense spending probably created jobs more directly through large projects like the Interstate Highway system and contracts for equipment from Lockheed, Boeing, Grumman, etc.  And don't forget there was a very large military.

Now, the same generation that benefited from 1956's defense spending is benefiting more directly from Social Security and Medicare.  Instead of the money being channeled through defense contractors, it is being paid directly to them.  Seems like we've just cut out the middlemen.

Seems like there should be a lesson here somewhere.

First of all, I thought it was explained pretty thoroughly that Social Security and Medicare are NOT welfare. When you personally pay into something for benefits later on, it is called "insurance." When you get a benefit and you are not required to have participated in funding that program, it may reasonably be called "welfare." See the difference? The fact that some people have more money than others still doesn't make it welfare.

Your step father may be able to afford the price of personal health insurance, but pay attention to this:

If he is required to get his own personal policy and he happens to develop high blood pressure, a heart condition, depresssion, cancer, diabetes, or any number of other conditions that one is more likely to develop as he ages, he may face the terrible consequence of insurance-land.

Once you have any kind of long-term condition or illness and you are not a part of a group, your insurance premiums can become completely unaffordable, or in some cases insurance can be denied altogether.

Because of a history of breast cancer, the only way I could bring my premiums down to an affordable rate: $360 a month, was to have a YEARLY deductible of $5,000! That's right. After paying $4,320 a year to Anthem Blue Cross, I would have to pay out another $5,000 before they would pick up the first penny. And if I had the bad luck to do all that in December, come January the clock would start back at the zero hour again.

[[[I hear GOP'ers talking about how Bill Gates and Warren Buffet should never get Medicare. Why don't they ever use their names when they talk about their famous "death tax?" ]]]

The point I'm making is that there are plenty of retired professionals who might be called too rich to deserve Medicare, but have far fewer cash reserves than the billionaires that get dragged out every time this comes up. Fine: let them pay a higher premium. But once you take them out of a group and force them to get coverage as individuals they are at the mercy of one of the most unscrupulous industries I can name.

Unless risk is shared across the board, it becomes necessary for one person to prepay for his/her health care costs so that the insurance companies can continue to profit off of the mess we call our health care system.

"Busting the budget?" Increase the level at which Social Security wages are paid. Why cut it off at such a low level? AS a percentage of income earned it is a much bigger chunk out of the salaries of those who pay it on their whole salary. Make it a smaller amount without ANY ceiling. It is silly to say it is busting the budget with so many simple solutions available.

Same with Medicare: Increase the premiums of those with higher incomes; increase their co-pays, but don't leave them at the mercy of Anthem, or the many other insurance companies which penalize those who actually, um, get sick.

"Busting the budget?" I guess you haven't noticed the Iraq war machine. Being off-budget really doesn't count if you have a brain in your head.

Jan Knaus

There's an added irony that "welfare" was no doubt a euphemism in the first place, deriving from a more established meaning: as in my nearest dictionary, "the good fortune, health, happiness, prosperity, etc., of a person, group, or organization; well-being: to look after a child's welfare; the physical or moral welfare of society." So now the right embraces it.

It'd be worth spelling out, too, more of what's behind the changes sice 1956. As far as I can see, what he means is a shift from what the budget classifies as payments to individuals relative to national defense. (A third area, net interest, obviously blossomed starting with Reagan's supply side economics, and "all other" has declined.) The shift actually began in 1952 (not counting an earlier peak in defense spending for WWII), but that might suggest total GOP collusion, so I can imagine why he chooses a later date.  

One reason is just that the demilitarization of government after WWII took time and intensified after Korea and the early Cold War. although it leveled off for Nixon's preposterous extension of the Vietnam War and Reagan's private arms race. While one might expect the liberal Great Society to be the other villain, in practice the biggest shifts in the percentage toward payments to individuals took place under Nixon and in the early 1990s. The popular American government text I'm consulting for this puts it mostly down to demographics, for social security. But myths of willful handouts to the undeserving poor will never die, not as long as we've pundits to promote them. 

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

I don't quite get why this particular column is getting the treatment.  I don't find anything wrong with it.  It is axiomatic that politicians refuse to be straight with the American people when it comes to setting budget priorities.  Samuelson is exactly right that neither liberals nor conservatives are honest on this issue.  Liberals cannot bring themselves to admit that taxes need to be raised on more than the rich.  Conservatives can't deal with the fact that entitlements or welfare or whatever isn't going away.  The whole debate about the size and priorities of the budget is just shrouded in bullshit.

Whether someone labels programs like Social Security and Medicare "welfare" or "entitlements" the fact is that any serious discussion of federal spending must include these programs as part of that discussion.  I suppose trust is a big part of the equation here - surely if liberals relent on their solid wall of opposition to tinkering with these programs, conservatives will be tempted to push for altering them beyond recognition.  But as a general rule, if conservatives are open to a reasonable discussion of taxes, liberals ought to be open to a reasonable discussion of who should get entitlements.

I bow, with deep respect, at the finest mixed metaphor of the day: Lord Vader doing kabuki. Ah so, desu ka.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

When you get a benefit and you are not required to have participated in funding that program, it may reasonably be called "welfare."

Social Security is "welfare" in some sense because, if you are disabled, you can collect it. I think that some children can also collect social security.

The people who see it as "insurance" want to raise the retirement age to 80, or something like that, because "few people would collect it."

On the other hand, if the "benefit age" is low, social security becomes "an entitlement" (welfare) instead of "insurance" because you're certain to collect it!

Some politicians favorer a "younger retirement age" because, when somebody retires, a "new job" is available for someone in the next generation. This also might lower "overall cost" since the new worker might cost less.

.> and politically inviable to propose
> a return to the Colonial Era economic
> system.

Samuelson and his ilk firmly believe that the Gilded Age was the peak era of the United States, and they would very much like to see it come back. That is what they are striving towards.

sPh

Even some leaders of the Religious Right (e.g., Gary Bauer) have spoken out against messing with Social Security. I often wonder if those who are so critical of Social Security either come from mega-rich families or else their parents are already deceased. One reason Social Security is popular even with those who are years away from collecting benefits is because without it the burden of supporting their parents would fall on them, and this would be insupportable for all the but the truly wealthy.

Medigap is great, and treats the elderly like a group. I'm talking about taking them off Medicare, which was what I was responding to. That is when the feces hits the fan.

Jan Knaus

Thanks for calling that post out, CV. You are absolutely correct. To expand a bit..

Children do get a survivor benefit until the age of 18 if the parent has paid into the system and dies. A child can, in some cases, also receive a benefit if the parent becomes disabled under the same circumstances.

Now, there is a program in place for those who have never paid into the system yet become disabled or reach retirement age called SSI. However there are strict limitations on this and the amount of assistance is quite small.

Two last points:

First, the amount of money you pay into the system determines how much you draw out when your time comes. Just like with an insurance policy- higher premiums equal higher payouts.

Second, in the SSA's on terminology, they use variations of the word "insurance" in several instances. For example, the date you started paying into the system is listed as "date insured." When you apply for disability, one of the examiner's forms asks if the applicant is "insured," meaning whether or not you paid into the system within a certain time frame.

Oh, they also take a monthly premium out of all Social Security checks for Medicare, so that isn't welfare either.

I wish that Language Theft was a crime, Reese.  You are absolutely right here.  Welfare shouldn't have a pejorative meaning, for you or for any other thinking person. 

But just because this is a semantic struggle doesn't mean it isn't crucially important.  Time after time, the right wing takes a perfectly good word, perverts its meaning, and sends other parts of the political spectrum scurrying to look for a synonym to use in its place.  If the more left side of the political spectrum doesn't fight for control of the language it is going to find itself perpetually on the defensive.  We become accomplices in our own verbal defeat when we let words be stolen uncontested. 

My best current example of this, aside from "Welfare," is "Liberal".  We've let the right steal that word, too.  We scurry to call ourselves something else--progressive, populist, whatever, because we're afraid to join the contest.  We let the right pervert the language and devote our energies to renaming ourselves.  In the process we look weak.  In the process we are weak.

My best example of how not to succumb to language theft comes out of the civil rights movements...African Americans reclaim the word Black, and become empowered.  Homosexuals reclaim Gay and Queer, and become empowered.  I'm quite willing to answer proudly that I'm a liberal.  This isn't a war over semantics:  it's a struggle to save the language from those who pervert it for their own ends.

aMike

Why do I think you're joking?

Jan Knaus

Because you've always jumped to conclusions?

If only there were some sort of mat . . .

Nope.  But equally how many liberals are open to a discussion of means-testing Social Security or Medicare?

This is why the debate is frozen and it will probably take an economic crisis to break the logjam.  As long as the economy seems prosperous, there is no incentive to change anything and thus anger the base voters.

One very difficult point is when to consider treatment as futile, which is not limited to the elderly. I'm reminded of a case on my trauma and critical care mailing list, with an alert 92 year old woman who had been in a car accident. There were some nonspecific signs of internal bleeding, but she was managed aggressively and, I believe, appropriately. Unfortunately, a couple of mornings later, she could not be awakened, and scanning showed clots scattered through her brain -- none of the physicians commenting can explain it. I don't think this was futile care.

What can be a much more difficult call is a liver transplant for an alcoholic, even one that is sober but hasn't been for long. Particularly difficult are the traumatic brain injuries in young people, from gunshots, from unrestrained motor vehicle crashes, etc. With a limited budget, how far do you go when it's not a question of parts of the brain perhaps recovering from bruising, but are simply gone?

My own advanced directive goes on for about six pages, as I try to define, for myself, what I would consider futile or even insulting. I've discussed them thoroughly with my surrogates, although the closer one who realistically is #1 on the list doesn't have anywhere near the medical knowledge of #2. I've been a patient advocate in enough cases that I would like to have a clone taking care of my interests. :-)

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Now that I got that off my chest, don't take your eye off the ball.  The "problem" with Social Security is that it has OVERCHARGED the Boomer generation in PAYROLL (read REGRESSIVE) taxes.  This deal was cut in the mid-1980s by that darling neo-CON Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the roll model for modern DINOs.  This OVERCHARGE led to UNDERcharging of INCOME tax (you know, the only really progressive tax we have). 

All this overcharging and undercharging is attached to the very mislabeled "Trust Fund."  At the magnitude of the Social Security "Trust Fund" it is IMPOSSIBLE to put money away for the future (the idea is meaningless).  So the "Trust Fund" didn't save any money (an impossibility), it spent it in the GENERAL FUND of the United States (which is why income taxes were undercharged). 

Now to PAY THE PROMISED BENEFITS without paying them out of PAYROLL (REGRESSIVE) taxes, the United States is going to have to pay them out of INCOME (progressive) taxes.  This fact is the ROOT of the HOWLING among the rePublicans.  Their wealth (the very wealth they aggregated over the last 20 years) is threatened.   This is why Social Security matters more to them than Medicare (a bigger future disaster, but more easily kept in the payroll tax box).

If you do not understand the problem, you cannot solve it.  The solution is to make DAMN SURE the cost of the solution falls on the WEALTHY, who have been the beneficiary of the policies over the last 20+ years. 

Agreed, clever metaphor.

That is the expanded version of the comment I was going to make, but expressed much better than I could. Let me just summarize instead: The Repub party has just enough functioning brains in it to notice that eventually the SS trust fund will be needed to pay for the "welfare" of those who are retired. But, the money in the trust fund has been loaned to the general fund, so will have to be repaid, and that means from income taxes. When that hits the fan, the pressure to eliminate the obscene tax cuts for the wealthy will be too great to resist, and the goal of the wealthy to own every last nickel in this country will become unachievable. That scares them. I leave it to psychologists to explain why that should be so.

Hoppy in Sacramento

Did anybody happen to catch the Christmas edition of ABC's Newsmagizine 20/20? It was all about charitable giving in America and it knocked my socks off!

In stark contrast to what almost everybody on this thread is saying, American's generosity and attitudes to the poor and needy are not what most people think!

Did you know that according to America's largest charitable orginazations, those "greedy bastard Republican conservatives" donate more money to the poor and needy by a margin of 3 to 1 than the "caring, thoughtful Democratic liberals." Now wait you might say, that's because they are all rich! WRONG AGAIN, the lower and working middle class conservatives give WAY more money to charitable contributions than upper middle class and wealthy liberals!

In fact, the number one state in the U.S. in giving to charities per capita is Mississippi. And you know what, that is also the same state that has the lowest per capita income! Massechussets has the second highest per capita income and yet it ranks dead LAST in charitable giving. YES, all of those liberal do-gooders in Boston are truly cheap bastards, and those dirt-poor Bible-Belt conservatives are out giving everybody else in the Nation!

It's like my grandpa always said: "If you want to talk the talk, you better learn to walk the walk." And what I am saying is that if you really care about taking care of the poor and needy than get off your asses and donate 10/10! I have been challenging people for the last 20 years to give 10% of their time and 10% of their income to their community. The reality is that if everybody did this, there would be approx. 4X more money available to the needy than the federal government now spends on ALL welfare programs and 5X the number of total human/hours at work than the nameless, faceless government employees now work to (desperately) solve our nations social problems!

TJ, who or what are your sources for these claims? The following comes from this week's The Economist, which nobody can claim is a leftist publication. [All emphasis are added.]

European businesses are making better profits than their American counterparts (see chart 2). ...“currently European companies seem to be slightly more profitable even than their American peers.” This has been achieved even though revenues have been growing more slowly than in America, which underscores Europe's growing success in restructuring and consolidation. Corporate America and corporate Europe are now neck and neck in the globalisation stakes.

...the world's economic superpower [the US], with much higher productivity than its competitors (though productivity growth has recently been disappointing, and last year was slightly below Europe's).

An analysis by McKinsey, a management consultancy, shows that Europe has 29% of the world's leading 2,000 or so companies, broadly in line with its 30% share of world GDP. It punches its weight in most global industries except IT, where America is leagues ahead (see chart 1).

Who is sleeping at work and whose butts did we free??? Were there any profits or other benefits that the US received later from its investments?

Samuelson is wrong and you might want to find different sources.

War does not determine who is right - only who is left. Bertrand Russell

UnaHomer tells half the story, of course.

The states with the highest per capita giving to charity are also the states with the lowest per capita taxation and the lowest per capita spending on the needs of their own citizens.   There are solid historical reasons for this.  The northeast states  come from a tradition of public support for the public common good.  These states traditionally were the first to support public education, and the first to support compulsory education paid for by taxation.  These states today are the states which tax themselves the highest.  These states are the states which spend more, per capita, on public health measures.  These states are at the forefront of universal health insurance. 

These states vote these taxes and commit themselves to these expenditures themselves.  Nobody forces them to do it.  This is another form of giving, and in some ways a fairer one.  The taxes on income and property are progressive...requiring more of those who own more.  Given my druthers, I'd far rather live in a state which supports the common good by common consent, has higher rates of graduation from high school, and a greater percentage of college graduates.  (see p. 8 for example).

AMike

The root of Social Security's problems are in the funding decisions in the 1980s that transfered huge portions of low and middle income payroll taxes to the General Fund of the United States, thereby reducing the tax burden of the wealthy.

Sorry, but this makes no sense whatsoever.  The counting of the Social Security payroll taxes in the general budget is an accounting issue designed to reduce the apparent size of the deficit.  The Treasury borrows money from the Social Security surplus, the same way it borrows money from foreigners and Americans buying T-bills.  Those funds are not "transferred" to the General Fund.

But this has nothing to do with the health of Social Security, unless the government is not planning to honor the Treasury bills that the Social Security system has bought.  As many pointed out during the bogus Social Security debate of 2005, the finances of Social Security are actually not in bad shape, as long as you assume that the government will honor those T-bills they bought.

Couldn't resist a Clinton dig, I see. The only recession listed for the 90s is during the Gulf War, according to DowJonesIndexes.com.

Memes is right; this is not fact. Some Americans are doing better than some Europeans--what is the overall societal health? Gregory S. Paul found it to be significantly better in Europe, in his paper "Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies: A First Look". But that seems not to matter. Funny how conservatives emphasize character values and then throw all their support behind money, discounting other values like security and health.

And that quarter-century of non-stop growth did have a bit of a slowdown, if I remember, beginning in 2000 but becoming noticeable by 2002. Illuminating to look at a stock-market chart for the last couple of decades.

I am always amused to find we get credit for bringing down the USSR. Guess those folks didn't know how to exercise personal responsibility. It couldn't possibly be that they figured things out themselves.

A "literate presentation" also applies to storytelling, appropriate here.

I think you may have read some things into my statement, so I will clarify. I did not mean to imply that we gain no benefit from saving the world. If all 6 houses on my street were on fire and I had a hose, I am not motivated by selfish motives to help them, if in the end I am better off. It is clear that in the 1960s all over the world, if you wanted to buy a toaster it was made by Americans living in quaint little suburban homes.

Yes, you are right some western European countries did have high defense budgets. It should also be mentioned that in the top five on the list Greg is referring to are Scandanavian countries with massive amounts of north sea oil dispersed amongst populations about the size of Illinois. Your remark about them being on the front lines is true regarding the scary and realistic invasion scenario you described. Whether that would trigger all out Atomic exchange, affects the degree to which the US is frontline too.

The term you used of "blunting" is a phrase I have heard before by people that would like to differentiate between "containment" which implies a static state that may exist in perpetuity, and "blunting" which includes the concept of containing the spread, harrassing their efforts to spread, hinder their abilities to succeed in areas they do control, limit their freedom of mobility, weaken their authority in places they are confronted by supporting opposition groups. The implication is that we can hold our breath longer than they can. It took 50 years with the Soviet bloc and Chinese.

You have heard my concern that the left doesn't lay out reasonable alternatives to confrontation with Iran and Iraq, although I have read your ideas with interest. At this point, it appears that the left is not really proposing containment of Islamic imperialism, they seem to be just arguing that it doesn't exist or is such a small threat that foreign military involvement is not necessary. If containment were argued, then it would require some sort of foreign presence if even in a limited sense like our advisors in Somalia. I believe "blunting" is an even better proposal because it implies that if we sit at home and spend money on Port security or customs officers pension funds, that the Islamo-facists will increase their influence and grow unhindered. If we harrass them in every way, and encourage moderates in their sphere of influence, we can hope to suck the oxygen out of their movement and outlast them. If the left has ideas to "blunt" the threat from radicals, that does not include Iraq, even that might have a lasting widespread appeal.

I should have been more clear about the French civil war which refers to casualties, not deaths, although there have been Deaths in France.

Here is link quoting from the London Telegraph:

Link

"....

"We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists. This is not a question of urban violence any more, it is an intifada."

My friend Blueslord from Actual Jihad has translated an article from the French paper Le Figaro which indicates that this year police casualties will reach 15% of the total police force:

"Violent acts are rising in an exponential proportion", says a speaker from the Police. "If this tendency continues, we will have 15% of the policemen hurt in a year".

That means French police police are suffering a higher number of casualties than are American armed forces in Iraq. The total number of casualties in Iraq per year is approximately 6,800, which represents about 4.5% of total American forces.

The casualty rate for the French police force will be over 3 times higher than that of the American military forces in Iraq. That is a stunning statistic.

It seems France really is at war, and thus far the French police are showing no signs that they intend to surrender, unlike the British police.

..."

As you remember when the intifada began, the US media didn't know how to cover it. First they struggled to sell it as mistreatment of a minority people of color. Then after the city continued to burn they tried to pitch it as "Le Rodney King", racial and economic frustrations boiling to the surface. Rarely did the American media mention that many of these people hate western culture, do not want to assimilate, and are growing at rates that will engulf the nation in a generation. Although we disagree often, I appreciate your post and the opportunity to clarify my point.

A recession is not defined by fluctuations in the Stock market. It is based on growth. There are many times that Liberal economists try to redefine the traditional defintion into things like "peoples perceptions of recession". This leads to ridiculous news broadcasts where they say, "Although the economy continues to grow each year since the year Bush took office, the man on the street doesn't think so. Here we found this person on 42nd street that thinks we are in a recession".

Or the opposite, "Although the Clinton economy is no longer growing, this poll shows many people are happy to be alive, so fears of a recession are not on people's minds".

In the last five quarters of Clinton's administration, 3 of those quarters were negative growth. Including the continuing economic stagnation up to the quarter beginning 5 months into Bush's administration, In about a 2 year period, most (4 of 7) of the quarters reflected a shrinking economy. That represents a much longer period than the brief war time recession of Bush 41.

You call it a dig? I think I was fair in noting that it too followed the Kosovo war, but it is arguable as to whether that had much effect on the economic downturn.

In Bush's first year, what is notable is despite the massive economic hit that our economy took especially in the transportation sector on 9/11, the economy started growing even as military costs and war time economic stress bore down on the economy. The growth has continued ever since.

It is interesting how you mention you are amused by storytelling and what you consider to be the Myth of the cold war, that the US did nothing to effect their downfall and they just magically woke up one day and said, we quit. Storytelling? Oh brother!

I was not aware that 1989 had a single quarter of negative growth, Mr. Good 4 America. There was a very brief recession that began the month that Saddam Hussein shocked oil markets and the stability of world markets, when he invaded Kuwait and threatened to take the majority of the world oil supply hostage. The recession ended the same quarter that we ejected him from Kuwait and signed a temporary ceasefire contingent on his compliance with UN resolutions.

Your other remarks about how others trade with us and it causes them to be economically disadvantaged. The concept that rational peoples around the world would engage in trade with us when it actually creates an overall disutility for them is not considered a valid premise by any known economist.

I don't know where you get this stuff.

To be honest, "blunting" popped into my mind as one of the declassified terms for the early US (i.e., pre-SIOP) nuclear strike plans against the USSR. There were three general types of attacks:

containing the spread, harrassing their efforts to spread, hinder their abilities to succeed in areas they do control, limit their freedom of mobility, weaken their authority in places they are confronted by supporting opposition groups. The implication is that we can hold our breath longer than they can. It took 50 years with the Soviet bloc and Chinese.

If we harass them in every way, and encourage moderates in their sphere of influence, we can hope to suck the oxygen out of their movement and outlast them.

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Right... That is the root of the wealth gap that is so widely discussed these days.  Payroll taxes offset income taxes resulting in a much more regressive net tax system.  Unsurprisingly, the rich get richer.  Sure there is a promise that income taxes will ultimately reimburse the payroll taxes, but that is still 10 years down the road and one way to see our CURRENT deficits is simply to note that the payroll tax offset is not as great as it used to be.  AND the idea that SS is welfare is designed to reduce the amount income tax must reimburse payroll tax.

Out of curiosity where did you get the odd idea we (the US and Britain) invaded Europe (the Normandy landings, etc.) for the purpose of winning the French their country back?

Weird! 

There is a lot you are unaware of.

I'm glad to feed your curiosity, Ellen. If you read up the thread, one of the primary concepts discussed at the top was the fact that assisting other nations with their defense or liberation is always a mix of self-interested national interest and humanitarian reasons. Some cases will be more balanced than others. If you think that minimizing national self interest is so "Weird" then it is understandable how a Rwanda can happen. I don't think you do believe it is that weird in general.

I was not arguing the odd idea that we invaded for the purpose of winning the French their country back, but in reality, that was exactly what the short term goal was. The purpose was to expel the Germans, depose the Vichy and reinstate the Free French as a friendly base of operations to wage an all out onslaught across the Rhine into Nazi Germany.

Weird? I don't think so. I think Ike did a pretty good job of it. We used their country as a launchpad and defeated the Germans as our ultimate goal in the European theater. Did we serve our own personal goals as well? You bet. It was one of the many times in our history where what was good for America was good for all of mankind.

"..The only way Europe could have protected its higher standard of living for the middle class would have been to establish tariffs equal to the benefits we failed to provide the middle class..."

Oh, this is priceless. It reminds me of the time Gov. Cuomo said through gritted teeth that New Jersey was engaging in predatory practices by lowering tax rates and luring businesses and shoppers of big ticket items over the river to the detriment of New York. I love it.

You are saying that Europe's middle class is "entitled" to the Higher standard of living and the way to protect their inefficient production methods is to place taxes on their own consumers ability to purchase the American products they desire. You go on to argue that we are stealing their 2 month vacations and government regulated right to sleep on the job, because we are unfairly not offering the same stupid "sleep on the job," "paid goldbricking" rules as they do. OMG, I feel so sorry for those guys.

This is hilarious. Americans work longer hours because we want to. We work harder and produce better and smarter. Its called competition and if they can't get free champagne during lunch break, tough. We win, they lose. If they decide to pull their socialist heads out of their ass, then we can change that to a we win, they win.

You are getting to be as entertaining as Tony. I'm going to have to cut and paste this to the archives.

You are basically making UnaHomer's point and going beyond that to make Stossel's point. The folks in Mississippi are able to give to charities they truly believe in and to remain close to those charities to ensure their efficiency because the governemnt has not crowded them out. They keep more of their money and contary to the allegations of the left, they have been more than responsible with the money they have been allowed to keep.

Massachussets according to your explanation can't donate to charity, because the government has taken all their money away and also, they figure, "I gave at the office". Then the big government that as you say as always been a big tradition in their lives, delivers charity in a more inefficent way than could be done if charity was left to the donar to choose.

Your remarks don't excuse the left or the north east for their stinginess, they only explain motive for the stinginess. When you say "no one forces them to do it". Are you kidding? If I live in Mississippi I can choose not to donate. No One forces me to. If I live in Massachussets and choose not to vote for the welfare state and then choose not to pay the taxes from the sweat of my brow, I am forcibly removed from my home and locked in a cage. I would call that force.

About a quarter of the populace at most is voting for the state's welfare state in the northeast. Yes, I know more people could vote, but saying that no one forces these people to pay into an inefficient system for delivery of charity is much worse solution. What you call common consent is not common consent.

And if you are implying that Massachussets and Mississippi are radically different rates of graduation, according to your link, Miss. and Mass. are both pretty close to the middle about 80-85% Miss. slightly trails. And when you consider the non state resources for education to the home of the Ivy league, Mass. should be wiping out a state like Mississippi. One of the other reasons Mississippi does not graduate as many from college, is because Democrats and North easterners do not enter the military in numbers at any where near the rate of the states of the deep south. That is what Lincoln referred to as the highest form of charity.

I suspect we are in agreement about a certain core value of ideals. It cheered me to see that the new citizenship exam deals much more with rights and obligations than the number of stripes in the flag. Dressing fits, especially if the salad is more of the composed type, such as cole slaw or potato salad. While in a conventional tossed salad, greens can leap out and attack one's tie, but potato salad tends to stay comfortably in one place. Mayonnaise, rather than a light vinaigrette, perhaps holds the country together.

Apropos of common values, I have some close Muslim friends. The naturalized immigrants among them have the kind of intense American loyalty you see among other immigrant populations that felt they were improving their lot in life by coming here. They are mostly West African, with a few Bah'ai from Iran. As opposed to France, however, they want to assimilate, with religion being one part of a full life.

Let's put it this way -- one of the second generation is perhaps 15. In a large family, he is the peacemaker, the best student, and almost disgustingly charismatic yet modest. This is the sort of kid you think of when you say "someday, you might be President."

I must give a certain credit to perhaps my favorite politician of all time, although the Faustian aspect is more mine -- although I've heard variants. On the general issue of praising the enemy of my enemy, I quote Churchill:

"If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons".

-
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Another potential reason for the apparent discrepancy.  Those calculations of charitable donations also include money given to churches.  That alone could, I think, tip the balance.

The numbers do not include money given to churches, but it does include charities run by churches.

I think it was the governor of Mississippi that said after Hurricane Katrina, No person starving under a pile of ruble is going to question what religious affiliation it is that brought you your first meal. This was in response to questions about bending the rules to let church relief groups into restricted areas.

I'm not sure what you are implying, that People in Massachussets are not only stingy with the poor, but don't give money to their churches as well? Boy, they must be taxed even worse than I thought.

What is your point?

My point is that there are likely reasons aside from greed or hypocrisy that conservatives donate more to charity than liberals.  Generally, conservatives are more likely to belong to churches and to support them financially.  Most sets of numbers on charitable donations include money given to churches -- after all, one can claim that as a charitable contribution on a tax return -- leading to the results that UnaHomer pointed out.

Unahomer, I think you make a good point, but I also think the philosophy of politics between liberals and conservatives is responsible for the difference in charitable giving.

Liberals have a deep belief that the government is soley responsible for taking care of their neighbors, they do not want the responsibility of doing it themselves. On the otherhand, conservatives are committed to the belief that government should never get involved in helping the needy, it is the sole responsibility of the community.

I don't buy the crapola that liberals have less money than conservatives because when you look at EVERY politician in Washington regardless of Party they are either millionaires or billionaires, PERIOD!!! In fact, I live in San Francisco, and all of my liberal friends live in a $5,000+ per month apartments and few donate to charities--this includes myself.

So the botom line is simply idealism, not one's ABILITY to give or not, but one's WILLINGNESS to give based on their political philosophy. As for my own philosopy, I think the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. Government's big money and programs are essential in helping solve society's social welfare problems, but realistically, locally funded charitable community programs are far more effective in actually meeting those needs. We need both!

The trouble with you wingers is you only look to the community when you get yourself in deep shit trouble.  Then its all, "I've been paying taxes for 30 years."  F--- You.

Huh? You lost me here.

Means-testing Social Security or other benefits usually means varying the benefit level according to the wealth of the beneficiary. So if you retire rich, your Social Security benefit is lower. The idea is that social insurance is INSURANCE, not an entitlement. It would prevent poverty by paying out to the needy and save money by not paying out to the rich.

I've never understood why this concept should be controversial.

I suppose that we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. In my mind, taking care of the elderly, disabled and orphaned kids will always be welfare because, regardless of what some people pay into the system, they'll get a lot more out than they ever put in-- and if everyone lives longer, that will mean everyone. I would never say this charity (welfare) is bad and I would never suggest putting a lifetime limit on payouts.

In the end, progressives will have to think how services are delivered to them. In the past, jobs have been outsourced to "cheaper labor" and my instinct tells me that the boomers will demand a "guest worker" program...

I'm glad you pointed that out. Yes, Stalin was more thug than ideology. As well as the others.

This is my point and the point of our founding fathers. They believed that in every generation and every population there will be someone that has an insatiable urge to take over the government and use it against everybody. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Just as we hear that guns should not be laying around because human nature is such that someone might have the urge to pick it up and kill someone, our forefathers believed that the power of government is so awesome, that it should not be left laying around for someone to pick it up and kill someone. They treasured Liberty that much.

Stalin is just another example of a thug that looked at the current ideological movement of his time, he talked the talk and he got on board, got hold of the steering wheel and 100 million corpses later.

We fought the fascist thugs of the 30s a decade too late. Even if they deluded themselves into thinking that the ideology justified their thugerry, the bottom line is they were megalomaniacal Thugs.

I hear your point about surgery. You think the cancer hasn't even become malignant yet. I believe it has been malignant since the Kennedy years, but we put off our annual check up and now it has spread so far that we may not be able to stop the spread because it is so close to the global tipping point.

These Islamofascists from Southeast Asia to Morroco to the streets of Chelsea are supporting a movement that is the worst, the absolute worst imaginable form of Fascism and thuggery that we have faced. It is a greater threat than the Soviets or the Nazis, because it is Stateless and has a minimal target on it, it is dressed up as a religion not a political movement, it can exploit our system and live amongst us, Unlike the small and late blooming band of suicidal kamikazees...they have suicide bombers in all regions and at their initiation (not in the dying days), They can out-produce us in fertility rates and use their exponential growth to overwhelm insecure European democracies at the ballot box, it is not dependent on technology and Industrial output as the 2 world wars were, and as we are seeing in Congress this week, they have more will to win than we do.

It is a cancer of fascist thuggery that has spread everywhere and the patient keeps saying, "But Doctor,...I feel fine".

If you think the threat is small. If we had not changed our behavior after 911, we would have suffered more 911s since then. Having a 911 once a year is not a small threat to me. The media is not the ones "hyping" the threat, on the contrary, they expend massive amounts of energy everyday to minimize the threat and hide facts that get in the way of that effort.

I liked the idea of Bravo, Delta, etc. strategy you laid out. I say blunt first. Hit their HQ first and their potential staging areas next. I think we are doing that. Its a long war.

I don't think Hegel or Nietzsche can be considered the authority on the definition of Fascism. Hegel's dialectical laid the foundation of materialism that Marx and all other socialist movements are funneled through. He made the Nazis and the Communists possible, but did not define the term. Nietsche's Nihlism strongly influenced the Nazis, but I don't think he provided many specifics that resemble the end result of the Nazi party. If you can point to the definition of "leader state" from Hegel or Nietsche, I would enjoy reading it.

OBL, Hitler, Mao, etc.

These guys are brutal thugs and the ideology they veil themselves in is only an instrument of their Thuggery.

Example: "It's a Real nice store you got here, Jimmy....It'd be a shame if anything ever happened to it".

Does he care about your store? No. He is saying I can behave in a way that seems almost compassionate and you will enjoy certain favors and benefits, but be assured, I am the ultimate arbiter of your freedom, what favors you do receive and what punishments you receive as well.

Just like When Iran, sent the letter to the American people last year. The message was an age old pre-Jihad song and dance. Basically, We are morally superior to you, which is why we are mercifully giving you the opportunity to convert to Islam, if you refuse to "submit" to the superiority of God, you are Satanic and must die, America.

Nice country,.... It'd be a shame if anything were to happen to it.

Just as we hear that guns should not be laying around because human nature is such that someone might have the urge to pick it up and kill someone...

If you think the threat is small. If we had not changed our behavior after 911, we would have suffered more 911s since then. Having a 911 once a year is not a small threat to me.

I liked the idea of Bravo, Delta, etc. strategy you laid out. I say blunt first. Hit their HQ first and their potential staging areas next. I think we are doing that. Its a long war.

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Exterminate all the brutes!"

Although it might be good manners to identify them before doing so. 

"Shoot first; ask questions later."

Answers?  Who needs 'em.  We Americans have all the answers we need -- always. 

1.  I assume you have completely forgotten the many clothing boycotts of the early 1990s, all involving sweatshops and children.

2. We do not successfully compete in textiles any longer.

3. Ask your European acquaintances if their social benefits have been cut and which they might have been.  It is a lot of work to educate you navel gazing wingers. 

I always have wondered why it's not called death insurance. The actuarial basis is that the insurer will have use of the insureds' money long enough to generate profits that will cover the death benefits in any given time period. You may pay in as much as the benefit, or even get some interest, but they will get a lot better return on the investment.

Health insurance is insurance only in the sense of catastrophic protection. For more routine treatment, it is more benefits management than true insurance. The benefits manager may negotiate discounts, require evidence of efficiency from the provider, etc.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Aha! APACHE II?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

We can say the insurance company is betting you'll live (past some date) and you're betting you'll die (before that date). Thus suicide clauses.

So it is life insurance in that you are insuring against living. Although just like car insurance we don't actually want to have an accident, we still only need the insurance if we do. Similarly, we only need life insurance if we die early.

Correct.  The only substantial health insurer in the US is the government, who bears the risk associated with catastrophe (usually after the victim has become a pauper).  This is why I advocate the abolition of the current health insurance system.  The benefit managers are screwing us.

The reason why I rated your post marginal is because, think about this situation: you and others start investing your deductibles into a cooperative health care system. If 200 people did this, you'd have $1,000,000 a year and if 200,000 people did this, you'd have a billion a year-- just for breast cancer treatment!

That's a lot of purchasing power!

For whatever reasons, many folks, like yourself, want the government to debate this rather than using your own market power to change things!

A PERSONAL STORY ABOUT "Medicare Is Welfare"

Last year, my grandmother was going to therapy (exercise) and medicare paid $150 a session which produced a monthly bill of about $1200.

Thankfully, for taxpayers, medicare decided to cut back. In light of that, she now goes to the YMCA for the "silver sneakers" program or exercises at home.

Now, I really love my grandmother but I also wonder "who is paying the $14,000 a year cost for the therapy?"

For example, here in Minnesota, 40,000 children go without health care! Thus, I wonder: is this happening because folks, like my grandmother, are overcharged for basic treatment?

To put it in perspective, her "therapy costs" were higher than the yearly wage that a typical Wal-Mart worker earns!

Now, I think that Ghandi was a smart man because he suggested that people should produce what they need by themselves.

That's one of my justifications for being worried that "the government will foot the bill."

People like Ghandi, I think, might belive that SS is welfare because it leads people to believe that their government produces something else besides money.

Let's see, cooperation between 200,000 people. What is that usually called? Hmmm... I know! I know! It's called GOVERNMENT!

Approximately the size of Montgomery, Alabama or Richmond, Virginia and a little less than half the size of Wyoming (which is, after all, approximately the proportion that cooperates in a typical election).

THAT is your problem, mcs, you want government, but you don't want to call it government. Based on American corporate law, when you put this in the private sector, the 200K cooperating people will be shoved aside by a board of directors who will be captured by management who will, themselves, decide that their members don't want quality health care, they want profit, which will justify the management's obscene salaries... Won't be long before your socialist idea is just another health insurance program (this is what has ACTUALLY HAPPENED to other cooperative insurance groups over the last hundred years).

This is an example of what is known in research design as the "ecological fallacy."  I am surprised that neither I nor anyone else caught this before. 

As anyone who lives here in NYC knows, even in the most liberal bastions, there are plenty of wingers.  (It so happens that a lot of those wingers work down on Wall St and make the lion's share of the money earned in NYC.)

It works the other way around, too.  Yes!  There are liberals in Mississippi!  Hundreds, if not thousands!

Information about charitable donations in conservative areas is NOT information about charitable donations by conservatives.  Based on the information discussed here, all we know is that somebody in those areas makes donations. 

My perfectly reasonable hypothesis is that the LIBERALS there are making up for the stingy nature of the public programs.  Add that to the discussion of the churches (church charities are dubious charities) and a more realistic picture emerges. 

As a further note, Guidestar lists 61 nonprofit hospitals in Mississippi (pop 2.9 m) as compared to 173 for Massachusetts (pop 6.4 m). When considering penetration to population, Mississippi has a fifth less access to nonprofit hospitals than Massachusetts does.  This fact does NOT support the view that Mississippians are more generous. 

Yep, APACHE is the brainchild of William A Knaus! He got the idea as a very young doctor when he was beginning to do rsearch in Intensive Care, but now it has grown to be more than he ever invisioned at the beginning.

It is the simplicity and variability that make it so useful; the values that go into the equation get a score based on how far away they are from normal (rather than assigning one score for a high value and another for a low value for example); and most of all because it is distilled down to the absolute fewest possible values to get a valid score. What is your experience with APACHE?

Jan Knaus

...and then once that money which was raised for the pot that goes to pay peoples' medical bills gets organized so that there is someone adding it up and taking it out, there would need to be someone deciding if it should actually cover EVERY medical bill. Like how about infertility? If the person deciding has 4 kids of his/her own the decision just might be that fertility treatments are not really medically necessary, and so would not be covered. Then they might notice that the people who come into the cooperative who already have, say diabetes, or cancer, are pulling out too much money. Soooooo, from then on, everyone has to fess up to all medical conditions, and they, er....can't join.

Pretty soon you've got...wait for it! The insurance mess we already have! The only thing NOT in you scenario is that the original coop was supposed to make a profit, but once a "leader" came on board it would just be a matter of time!

Jan Knaus

Now, there is a program in place for those who have never paid into the system yet become disabled or reach retirement age called SSI. However there are strict limitations on this and the amount of assistance is quite small.

Yes it's for those who are disabled to the extant that they cannot work. It does not matter when the disability happened, they could have been born with it, and may never have worked a day or paid in a cent. It is not easy to get the status. I believe it currently pays around $700 a month to most single folks who receive it, that's what a single adult relative on it gets and it's also what I've read recently doing research regarding him.

Actually, this small part of the program really does fit the definition of "welfare" if one is to be honest about it. It's definitely, absolutely needs based, you can't own much of anything, and any money they find out about you getting one way or another, even "in kind" for a lot of gifts, will be subtracted from your checks. They're tough, they only recently rescinded demanding that gifts of clothing be declared because it made them look like ogres to the Aunt Jenny's out there wanting to give their deaf retarded adult nephew or neice with cerebral palsy a sweater.

If an SSI recipient gets caught working off the books for cash or kind, they might lose the benefit, because the point of it is: meager subsistence assistance (welfare) to those who can't work. If you can work, you're not supposed to be getting SSI. If your disability is not permanent, they check on that regularly, you have to file status updates on your health.

If you are the parent of an adult with a severe disability, the conundrum you have is that you cannot leave anything to your child without having him lose the SSI, at least until he's poor again. Those who have a median value house and a few retirement accounts might have enough to keep the child with interest income a bit more than SSI after their death, and might tell SSI to take a flying leap, EXCEPT FOR THE FACT that the child would no longer get the Medicare coverage that is included with SSI! It's interesting that the health coverage is the kicker for many on SSI, they can't lose that, they might be able to live without the SSI doing odd jobs here and there according to ability, or on days when they are healthier, but they could never afford health insurance.

Putting money in a trust isn't a real solution to the problem for parents, they seek that out and challenge it and often SSI and the medical coverage is denied; a trust has to be so restrictive as if the child could never use it anyway except in some kind of oddball emergency. Bven when challenged in court, the courts seem to treat it very strictly as needs based.

So Supplement Security Income is welfare, but pretty tough welfare. There's no queens in this program. Maybe there's a few slackers savvy enough to know how to play the system who take advantage collecting for a short time with slipped disc back pain that someone else might go to work with, but they are rare.

actually, there are 300,000,000 in the US. That means I'm talking about less than 1% of the population.

and while you mock my idea, I still believe that the time has come for it since the Bush administration decided not to negotiate medicare drug costs and then created the donut hole!

FYI: I've met people who told me that the Red Cross actively squashes non-profit blood collection networks because the Red Cross wants to keep their monopoly on the lucrative blood products market. Somebody gave me a book on the topic but I didn't read it. If you're interested, let me know. I could dig it out and post the author and more information about it.

I can post the title, etc... if you want it...

there would need to be someone deciding if it should actually cover EVERY medical bill..

No, that's not my point because the poster talked about "breast cancer" and I suggested that "because she was forced to pay so much, it might be useful to pool those deductions and buy services and/or research as a group."

In the US, we spend far more than any other country on health care but we rank 21st in life expectancy. [cost rankings]

It amazes me that people become shocked to learn that I spent around $10,000 on a "home gym" (it's located in my 450 sq foot studio!). However, since the average family spends $8,500 on health insurance, I thought it was a good investment and my accountant depreciated it on my business taxes since the IRS builds fitness facilities for their employees using our tax dollars.

In my eyes, the results have been stunning: I've lost 70 lbs, or 25% of my weight; my blood pressure dropped from 140/90 to 115/75; and my V02 max is now 40.

The employees at my most important client have noticed and are pushing themselves, and their families, to get more fit.

I now work for them full time and they let me put a Total Trainer near my office so we can work out-- me mostly.

Every single medical problem that I seemed to have is now gone!

I think the lesson is that our civilian manufacturing has been exported and many of the remaining, higher paying jobs are military related.

My thesis is that economists didn't think they'd have to raise taxes to pay for war because the "military industrial complex" had become so huge!

Thus, by spending money on war, it would generate self perpetuating taxes that would more than pay for it,... although that didn't happen, I think...

It's hard to tell because I don't know if the rise in defense and/or energy stocks have been converted into consumption which is taxed yet,....

I think that the "tax cut" camp assumes that if you cut taxes, people spend the difference and, because the spending is taxed, you wind up collecting a windfall because of the multiplier effect and the fact that each transaction is taxed which leads to a higher effective tax rate.

The "multiplier effect" is as exaggerated and misunderstood as the "benefit" of paying interest on your mortgage.  Both sides of the multiplication matter.  As the tax rate goes down (1) there is less to pump into the economy by reducing it even further and (2) even if you do pump it into the economy, less of the new economic activity is recovered by the government through taxation. 

The Lafer curve (or more likely the Laugher curve) only demonstrates that there is SOME place on the tax rate where raising taxes will reduce revenue, it provides no empirical evidence where.  The gazillions of rePublican tax cuts since Ray-Guns went into office with his Voodoo economics shows the rePublicans have been having the last laugh on us.

"The Free French had leadership problems as with Darlan"

??!!

Darlan and his successor were Vichy fascists with whom the allies collaborated in North Africa, and they would have been prepared to collaborate with Petain as you admit below:

"The Free French were a turbulent crew that had trouble agreeing on a leader, Vichy originally seemed more independent of the Germans, and the Allies adapted as the situation emerged."

Here you seem to more in agreement with what is written in history reference books. You say "they seemed more independent of the Germans" -- this means they were Fascists (complete with concentration camps in North Africa) but the allies didn't think they were so bad and tried to work with them.

You can phrase it "the situation emerged" or "Roosevelt was forced" -- it is much the same.

But, however you say it, TJK's claim that we went into war to install the Free French is not supported by historical evidence.

"My version" is the same as:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/591468.stm

roosevelt was forced:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/allies_at_war_02.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/allies_at_war_05.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/allies_at_war_06.shtml

http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Operation_Torch

Darlan was not "Free French" he was Petain's deputy and head of the Vichy armed forces. He was assassinated by a Gaullist (probably). Henri Giraud was an extreme conservative with slightly better anti-Nazi credentials who had the support of the French oil and banking industries, but not the French people. The US tried to install him in Darlan's place. The US only recognized DeGaulle as leader of the French Resistance in October, 1944 near the end of the war. The Soviets had recognized De Gaulle as leader of the Free French in 1942.

You say Roosevelt broke diplomatic relations in 1942, but did he initiate the breakup or did Petain?

Petain's Reply to Roosevelt's Note of November 8, 1942

White House news release.

It is with stupor and sadness that I learned tonight of the aggression of your troops against North Africa.

I have read your message. You invoke pretexts which nothing justifies. You attribute to your enemies intentions which have not ever been manifested in acts. I have always declared that we would defend our empire if it were attacked; you should know that we would defend it against any aggressor whoever it might be. You should know that I would keep my word.

In our misfortune I had, when requesting the armistice, protected our empire and it is you who, acting in the name of a country to which so many memories and ties bind us, have taken such a cruel initiative.

France and her honor are at stake.

We are attacked; we shall defend ourselves; this is the order I am giving.

PHILIPPE PETAIN.
Source:

I shudder at the fear of your troll rating me. As a point of ethics, something you seem to need instruction on, if you find a post part of the discussion, then it is, by definition, not "troll."  

Impressions are built up over a long time, not just one of these 4 day wonder post pages, so exactly where the evidence is for you is hard to say.  You are indeed a liberal compared with TJKING, but that's a mighty easy standard.  If King rated me Troll for saying that, I would tremble in my boots, but everyone else who saw it would have a good laugh.  (Of course, it is likely that King gets rated Troll so often, he is likely unable to rate others Toll.)

Where was I?  Oh yes, you don't like being called a winger, but you do offer a lot of positions that might feel comfortable in the Republican party (note comment above on impressions being built up over a long time for where those positions are).  I, on the other hand, hold almost no positions that would be comfortable in the Republican party, and consider an eventual realignment that eliminates the Republicans and adds a new social responsibility party to the left of the Democrats as a desirable future.

Now, somehow you got very confused about clothing boycotts. My specific point there is that Americans do in fact have a lower social limit on the behavior of their trade partners.  This lower limit MAY be perceived as an absolute moral position, but it can also be viewed as a simple egoistic calculation, whatever we accept in our trade partners, we have to do ourselves in order to compete.

The Europeans have the same problem when trading with and competing with us.  When we have low quality social programs, they also must have low quality social programs.  This is why during the 90s a large number of European countries went through major tax restructuring.  What they used to pay for with those taxes is unclear to me.  But they used to pay for something with it.  Now they don't. You will have to ask the Europeans what benefits they gave up.

If you think the Europeans are not competing with the United States, I am afraid I only have more comments that you will rate zero for you. 

It is emphatically not an abuse of the rating system to rate rather than answer; the conventions of the system are that one usually does one or the other. Let me put it this way: someone can post something with which I totally disagree. As an example, I very often disagree with TJKING, but I can rate a post highly when it is courteous, feels like it is a give and take between peers, and distinguishes between fact and opinion.

With your posts, I have had a general sense that you make rather broad statements, and then become hostile and evasive when they are challenged. I have become tired of your taking quotes of mine out of context, as in this thread: I never said that we fought a war to install any French government. We fought a war to defeat Nazi Germany, and it was necessary to go through France to do so. Having a secure rear area is advisable for an advance.

When you start in on "it is a mystery to me why you want to deny what...", you can stay mystified. If you asked that as a polite question, fine. I started challenging you when you, in my opinion, were using the term "militarism" so broadly as to mean nothing.

Further, when I countered your generalizations about contemporary "militarized police" with the example of Birmingham and River Rouge as far more inhibitory of lawful protest, you never responded. I ask again: based on actual examples of repression, how are Harry Bennett and Bull Connor less repressive than modern urban police, "militarized" or not.

You cited Waco and Philadelphia as examples of, IIRC, "experimental military techniques", and I pointed out that both incidents went completely against published doctrine for the regular Army, much less special operations units. I offered to give you a link to the Field Manual Civil Disturbances and Disasters, and also references that might not be available online. This gave me the sense that you were quoting things that agreed with your preconceptions, but you actually are unfamiliar with how hostage rescues and building clearing are carried out by military units.

You made all manner of statements about biological warfare, and, when I countered based on direct scientific experience, you told me to go argue with Wikipedia -- and, lo and behold, I found a different Wikipedia reference that contradicted the specific point you made. Again, this did not give me any confidence you actually know anything about microbiology and the specialized subject of biological warfare, but you were simply quoting things you heard that matched your preconceptions.

Start discussing fairly, which includes not telling people what they think, and posting more than slogans, and I might start interacting with you. Until I see that, I choose not to respond to your posts, but, if I find them to be hostile or imprecise, I may give them the rating called for in the system. If you make cogent and courteous posts, whether I agree with the content or not, I will give them the appropriate high rating.

Announcing it is a mystery to you why I think something, on a specific topic where I did not take a stand but you pulled it out and beat it, is not a way to get dialogue. There's an old Navy saying that to assume makes an ass out of "u" and me. Don't assume. Ask, and ask courteously, and be willing to accept an answer.
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Ah, that proverb becomes nuanced. I observe that the epithet to which you refer should not be applied to certain political figures, as the anus has at least one more useful function than such individuals.

And vaguely apropos of the comments about France, the French Army's best argument about motorizing their cavalry units was "but if we did, on what would we grow mushrooms for the officers' mess?"

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

For the record, here is a compilation of your own "courteous" debating style (where you accuse me of being a fantasist, a liar, a "decider", like George Bush --your words--, and of having an "inability" to be courteous:

"Roosevelt wasn't 'forced', other than in your revisionist fantasies."

"It appears that you want to make flat statements that support your ideological and historical beliefs, and then complain when anyone mentions references or opinions that conflict with your beliefs."

"you see your role here as Enlightening the Unenlightened with your view of Truth. George W. Bush has a similar opinion of his positions. Apparently, both of you wish to be the Decider of relevance, and will avoid actual debate."

"I have not learned enough Newspeak to be unable to say anything against your argument."

"Your assertion about my 'admission' is a lie."

"I recognize your inability to enter into courteous debate"

***

I have no reason to doubt your claim to be an expert on biological warfare. I know I am certainly not and barely know Fort Detrick from Fort Dix. I only pointed out that a preponderance of experts disagreed with you (and some do agree with you). Therefore we are dealing with an issue in which there is only probability not certainty.

Historians also disagree with you about Roosevelt and Petain.

The dictionary disagrees with you about the meaning of "militarism."

You write: "I will call you a liar" -- the courteous expression is -- "I believe you are mistaken."

I don't disagree with your assessment of our war aims.

It has been enlightening for me to read up about operation torch and the deal with Darlan.

You seem to have information not widely known to the genral public. Have you considered writing a book yourself?

I wouldn't want moderators imposed on us all,

...but the title of Mr. Anrig's column was The Welfare State Myth. . .and the substance of it was a rebuttal of an assertion by Robert J. Samuelson. 

• I've written elsewhere about the technique of thread kidnapping, and how this technique is used by some of the more trollish readers to divert the discussion from the topic at hand, and that some of us, myself included, have enabled the kidnappers by responding to their diversionary tactics. 
• Some straying from the topic is to be expected, because examples used to refute or support an idea may be complex, potentially leading in directions even further afield from the topic at hand.  But by disciplining ourselves we can make it more difficult for those whose only purpose is to obstruct.  I'm trying hard to practice what I preach, but the urge to not leave a goofball statement unchallenged is sometimes irresistible.
• Perhaps it would be better to change the title for the (1) rating from "unproductive" to "irrelevant" meaning whatever value of the content in some other context, in the thread of ideas to which it was attached it has no reasonable connection. 

aMike