cg2112

*surnames

The Constitution doesn't agree. The government collects taxes for only two reasons - to fund defense, and to provide for the general welfare of the people. Meanwhile, the Constitution says absolutely nothing about any branch of government fostering an environment where capitalism, or any other economic system, succeeds.

Capitalism, socialism and communism have nothing to with it at all. It only takes a very basic understand of these economic and political systems to understand that these programs have nothing to do with the type of economy we have. They pay for these things, too. Maybe not as much as when they are not using those programs, but people don't stay on those programs forever. People making the sort of income to qualify for these programs end up putting much more of their paycheck into local taxes than the middle class and especially the rich. Capitalism doesn't come in to play here - capitalism is an economic system, and has no relationship to public assistance. Neither does socialism really, for that matter. When people call these programs "socialism," it really just shows that they don't really know what socialism is. I always find it a little odd when people on the right, people who generally profess a deep love to the Constitution, get bent out of shape about these programs. Making sure the poor can eat and that children can get health care, and that people can get a place live, to me, seems almost like a dictionary definition of providing for the general welfare of the people, which is only one of the two reasons that the Constitution allows Congress to collect taxes for.

WIC, housing assistance, child care assistance, food stamps, health care aid, etc.

Capitalism. That has nothing to do with. Success of social programs should be measured by how effective they are at meeting their objectives. These programs are very successful in that respect. If you want to measure success based on how much money is saved, on how much profit is earned, etc, then you'd need to create programs which have those as goals. Social programs such as welfare (this has nothing to do with jobs, by the way - welfare doesn't pay you not to work, many employed people get welfare assistance - you may be thinking of unemployment, which is by no means a hand out of any kind), social security, etc, do not have those goals.

Luckily, they aren't running our country into the ground, so that's a non-issue. Your car analogy is flawed, though an interesting choice. An accurate analogy would not be a program to keep your car on the road - rather, it would be a program to continue to give you the ability to get from point A to point B. Interesting that you use your car going from A to B as an analogy, though - considering that we all pay for that ability. You may pay for your car repairs, but we all pay for the infrastructure upon which you travel.

Being in the red is irrelevant. Those programs do not have the purpose of saving money, being profitable, or being financially efficient. The successes of these programs are not measured by monetary metrics.

I always kind of chuckle when I see "get rid of government programs" and the like (almost always social programs). If these programs weren't generally successful, that would make sense. But the fact is, they are. For some reason, I can't recall ever seeing Republicans opposed to expanding programs for space exploration, airport security or faith based initiatives, but plenty of objection to medicare, welfare, social security, and the like. They seem to, for some reason, only oppose programs that clearly work, and immediately help people. Please note that that is a general "they," used broadly.

I dunno. When someone says they'd rather see Palin be President, I question their love of this country. Seriously, though, who says we're not supposed to be "socialistic?" ... This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration. At the appropriate time, as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door, I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school. After work, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads to my house, which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshall’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department. I then log on to the internet, which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on freerepublic.com and fox news forums (and OR) about how socialism bad.

Why do you hate America?

I've found that for the most part, I don't need to jailbreak. The additions to iOS 4 cover most of the things that I wanted anyway. Wallpaper, categories, backgrounding apps, etc. I still have it jailbroken, though, because of the tethering (I don't really think that AT&T should be charging people an additional monthly fee to use the bandwidth that they've already paid a montly fee for), which I actually haven't used since getting the 4.

I'm sure that President Bush kept in contact with the White House, attended daily briefings, got security reports, etc, but the media covered President Bush's vacations pretty extensively, this isn't really new stuff here. My point in all this is just that implying that playing golf once every week and a half is somehow a bad thing is kind of silly. President Bush spent more time flying back and forth to his destination than President Obama has spent playing golf, and there seems to no trouble defending that. Now, watch this drive.

I assume that many of his trips to Camp David were working, yes. They aren't "vacation days," in the same way that his trips to Crawford, Texas were (a total of 77 trips, and 490 days).

That trip was mostly paid for out of pocket by the Obama's and the friend who traveled with them. Food, hotels, recreation, all paid for by them. We paid for the security detail (we'd be paying for that for the most part anyway).

He didn't drive to Crawford, Texas. He flew there on Air Force One, with a team of Secret Service agents. We paid for that, about $18 million. In his entire Presidency, he spent more than 400 days at his ranch, and even more at Camp David (I assume many of those days were working getaways, though). Facts are neat!

That's less than once a week. Remember, Bush had taken 96 vacation days between January 20th, 2001 and September 11, 2001. A golf game takes about 4 hours, so Obama has spent 208 hours playing golf in the last 21 months. Bush spent 2304 hours at his ranch in his first 8 months. We could do this all day.

Let's all celebrate by going into a stranger's house and telling them that we live there now.

I don't get the "controversy" over the attendance. Even if five million people attended, Glenn Beck would still be a miserable douchebag.

I got a lot of bullying when I was in school. You know that one kid in elementary school that everyone hates and picks on? Yeah, that was me. And I'll tell you, it was fucking rough. I'm not joking when I say that during those times, I felt more hopeless than I ever have since. I can't imagine killing myself, but I can empathize with the situation, at the very least. Here's another recent one. Gay kid at Rutgers, humiliated by his roommate: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/nyregion/30suicide.html In this case, there will probably be jail time, at least.

Absolutely. Sarah Palin was the least politically knowledgeable candidate I've ever seen in a national election. She didn't know what the Bush Doctrine was. She thought FDR was president during Black Tuesday. She though Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taxpayer funded. She couldn't name an important Supreme Court decision beyond Roe v. Wade. She believes that the Vice President is in charge of the Senate. She talked about the responsibilities of the US "Department of Law." I'll put any Vice Presidential candidate, Republican, Democrat, or Independent, against Sarah Palin any day. You really want to look at why McCain lost the election, you just look at Palin as a VP pick. Palin doesn't have a very basic understanding of government or policy. She's barely qualified to sit in on a tour of the White House. I sure as hell don't want her in a position where a heart attack could place her in the Oval Office.

That's actually probably unlikely. Obama won by 10 million votes, which is far more than the number of blacks who voted who would not normally vote.

It was in the San Francisco Chronicle (The article doesn't say anything about an "Oakland Chronicle," just that the photo was a "Chronicle photo.") http://articles.sfgate.com/2008-06-09/bay-area/17163709_1_mufflers-motorcycle-industry-council-motorcycle-cops

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/03/wiretapping_charges_tossed/ Charges were dropped, and the judge said that they shouldn't have been filed to begin with. “Under such circumstances, I cannot, by any stretch, conclude that the troopers had any reasonable expectation of privacy in their conversation with the defendant which society wold be prepared to recognize as reasonable.”

Unlike riding, I can't really do that in my current condition.