liberals want to legislate morality. you cannot do that.

not people - children. The last I checked children can't hold jobs and purchase their own insurance until they are at least 18. Lazy kids. Where are the compassionate conservatives? In George W. Bush's first state of the union speech he talked extensively about helping poor people. He talked in another state of the union about Schip covering more children. What happened?

So you are saying that if we didn't have any compassionate policies, all families could afford for one parent to stay home with their children?

the last i checked children were people. and the age is 16 not 18

and if they deliver newspapers it is 12.

No more complaining about the budget deficit for me! I'm going to start a charity! "Give some money for the government, ma'am?"

Your example at the end provides the way to undermine your idea. I would hope everyone who's interested in thinking and not just sneering realizes the "chicken-hawk" idea is stupid. It's ad hominem and it denies civilians a voice in policy. Moreover, if we tried to fight a war based on voluntary contributions from the people who support it, we'd surely lose. Every volunteer who signs up gives more people an excuse to free ride, since it makes it more likely they can share in the fruits of victory even if they don't sign up for the risks of combat.

If the economics of children's health insurance is the same as the economics of war, it would be foolish to try to solve the problem with charity instead of government. Even if everybody agreed children's health care would cost them $5 but benefit them $10, the only way to get them all to contribute without free-riding is to force them into a compact that says, "I will pay $5, but only if someone makes sure everyone else contributes their $5 too."

Now there are liberals who view the government as a charitable enterprise that can force other people to donate to it, and they should just start charities. I'm approaching this from the perspective of those who support government programs because they think their benefit to society is greater than their cost.

Nice thread. Buddhist's don't pray, by the way. There's no one to pray to. For the record.



Quite so. I remember this kid in High School that everyone made fun of because not only was he fat, but he was really foppish. In order to try and be "cool" I remember clearly him getting a biology test back where he had failed and he was bragging about it. I guess so that he could be considered "cool" by the idiots that never studied or paid any attention in class. I pulled him aside and told him "Listen...I'm as guilty as any of making fun of you, but don't you EVER be proud of sucking. There is nothing there to be proud of."

Part of the ignorance chain starts in our schools with kids like the one I just mentioned. They are so wrapped up in being popular that the idea of learning anything is secondary, at best. Most of the kids getting beat up by stereotypical jocks and bullies in my school were beat up because they were smart. Evolution ain't done. There are still a lot of apes running the show. Many of them are parents.

Leonard Nimoy is the man who played Spock. Jesus is the man who played the Messiah.  People don't worship Jesus because he was a real person. They worship him because they think he was the son of God, the messiah.

Children aren't hatched out of thin air. They are produced by people who either could not afford to purchase health insurance for them or choose not to buy health care for them.

As I've pointed out elsewhere, conservatives are the ones who, overwhelmingly, voluntarily contribute to and run the charities that help children. That's where the compassionate conservatives are.

A better question is, where are the compassionate liberals?

Consider this: rich liberals build and create things like MoveOn.org. Even though conservatives donate far more money to charities and make a lot more money, you don't see conservatives creating things like MoveOn.org. They would, instead, put their money into things like the Red Cross, The United Way, Children's Cancer Research, etc.

I'm saying no such thing.  As long as people choose materialism over their children you will have both people working.

But if working families weren't having their earnings looted from them to give over to the parasitic class, then more of those families would earn enough money to reach the material threshold they want to live at that would allow one of the parents to stay at home.

Which is why I pointed out the absurdity of both arguments.  I do not seriously expect people to go out and start charities.  I am demonstrating that both arguments are flawed.

Moreover, the analogies are only workable on the surface. Unlike national defense, which requires people to both volunteer to do it and in your analogy require people to volunteer to support it, a charity to provide health care to the "needy" simply requires people to volunteer to pay for charity.

And if that isn't enough, conservatives tend to be the ones who favor the military more strongly and who also pay the most in taxes.  By contrast, liberals tend to be the ones who favor giving money to others while paying very little themselves.

There is no black and white position on this.

For instance, if we only paid for government programs that we supported, government would be OVERWHELMINGLY conservative in policy. 

According to the data I provided earlier (from CNN), people who vote for Republicans (who tend to be conservatives) pay 70% of the taxes.

Conservatives tend to be the ones who favor the military, law and order, private schools, private health care.

Democrats, who pay 30% of the taxes, tend to be the ones who favor taking money from one person to give to another. And liberals pay less, even taking % of income into account, donate less to charities.

LIberals aren't compassionate. They're posers.

Come on, Sabrina. What kind of sense does that make? *rechecks calculations* Oh - my bad. Perfect sense. I forgot to carry the one.

No, you walk by knowing that they have a choice of a good life and they reject it utterly. They want to suffer on the streets, so why waste your money on them, a person who wilfully rejects everything their society offers them? If they want to be on their own, they can, and there's no good reason for you to support them with private donations.

It's not like they're entertaining you or providing some service you appreciate.



Sure. It might encourage them to go the press, the place they should have gone in the first place, and get their treatment subsidised properly (cos presumably they're begging on the streets because they've got something obscure that Medicare doesn't account for).

A few bucks isn't going to pay for a 500k treatment plan (cost enforced by US drug companies), although it might end up funding a trip to India to have it treated with vastly cheaper and chemically identical generic drugs, so maybe that would be a good idea. So on second thought I'd probably ask them what they're raising money for, and make a decision accordingly.

Right, Loca. I abandoned my children to die in the streets. Nope. Don't care about 'em!

Are you conservative Gideon? And even if you are I'll rephrase, why don't conservatives care about other people's children?