Do you think the Democrats' goal is to get as many people on welfare as possible?

Reply

No2statism Posted: Mon, Dec 31 2012 12:19 PM

rated by 0 users

I do, but I'm wondering what you thought so that's why I'm asking.

Reply

Neodoxy replied on Mon, Dec 31 2012 1:08 PM

rated by 0 users

I'd seriously doubt that that would be anyone's conscious goal. It might be the effects of their policies and they might register this one some level, but I would be amazed if anyone actually implementing policies realized the effects of what they were doing the way that you are laying it out.

Edit

Also, I see relatively little evidence of this in the first place. It's not like the Dems are pushing forward huge welfare measures.

Reply

Malachi replied on Mon, Dec 31 2012 1:18 PM

rated by 0 users

Neo, have you ever read Saul Alinsky?

Reply

Wheylous replied on Mon, Dec 31 2012 1:29 PM

rated by 0 users

Nah, I doubt it. But politicians have a natural inclination to want people to become dependent on them.

If you read Rollback, you'll find a section that says that some agencies get funding per welfare recipient - therefore, they sometimes sit around trying to figure out how to get more people to get on welfare.

Reply

Anenome replied on Mon, Dec 31 2012 2:43 PM

rated by 0 users

Bismarckian politics would say, the path to power is to get as many people financially dependent on you as possible. It's the same path the late Roman emperors took. It's worked for Chavez, it's generally the entire appeal of communism.

If you study history, you'd see that those who promised largesse from public coffers were able to become dictators. If your goal was total power, it's a logical path to pursue. I'm quite sure there are many professors and politicians who realize exactly what's going on, but want to make sure simply that they or their allies are the ones who get total control of society.

Reply

myhumangetsme replied on Mon, Dec 31 2012 3:35 PM

rated by 0 users

Neodoxy:

I'd seriously doubt that that would be anyone's conscious goal...

Reply

shackleford replied on Mon, Dec 31 2012 4:07 PM

rated by 0 users

To this question I would say duh.

Reply

Prime replied on Mon, Dec 31 2012 5:16 PM

rated by 0 users

They do:

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been running radio ads for the past four months encouraging those eligible to enroll. The campaign is targeted at the elderly, working poor, the unemployed and Hispanics."

http://money.cnn.com/2012/06/25/news/economy/food-stamps-ads/index.htm

Reply

shackleford replied on Mon, Dec 31 2012 5:26 PM

rated by 0 users

Oh, and I might add since LBJ and the "Great" Society.

Reply

cab21 replied on Tue, Jan 1 2013 2:17 AM

rated by 0 users

what do you mean by welfare, does having a military count as welfare? i thought the general welfare was simply stuff like military, police, and courts.

it's the democrats goal to have more people contributing than taking.

the logic of a safty net is that people bounce up and go back to contributing more than they took. people cycle through being able to give more. a baby needs some nurishment to turn into a contributing adult.

those that make the most, made the most because of the system and thus pay a larger percent back as they have made the most from the system

how many husbands want their wives and children to be fully independant / hostile to the husband for finance, protection, and decision making?

i would figure and husband or any wife would want some interdependance and think there is a mutualy benefitual relationship.

Reply

Malachi replied on Tue, Jan 1 2013 11:30 AM

rated by 0 users

it's the democrats goal to have more people contributing than taking.

those that make the most, made the most because of the system and thus pay a larger percent back as they have made the most from the system

how many husbands want their wives and children to be fully independant / hostile to the husband for finance, protection, and decision making?

i would figure and husband or any wife would want some interdependance and think there is a mutualy benefitual relationship.

Reply

cab21 replied on Tue, Jan 1 2013 12:14 PM

rated by 0 users

a lot of people participate in government and want it involved in their lives for one purpose or another.

i think it's a tiny minority of people that don't want a relationship to government in some form or another. 

a lot of people are parts of larger organization than father-wife-children from members of a church to members of a government. those larger forms of social groups are parts off many people's lives and the groups provide perceived benefits or would be broken.

many people around the world have government  or larger group than the immediate family as part of or a extension of the family or social group.

Reply

Malachi replied on Tue, Jan 1 2013 12:23 PM

rated by 0 users

a lot of people participate in government and want it involved in their lives for one purpose or another.

i think it's a tiny minority of people that don't want a relationship to government in some form or another. 

a lot of people are parts of larger organization than father-wife-children from members of a church to members of a government. those larger forms of social groups are parts off many people's lives and the groups provide perceived benefits or would be broken. many people around the world have government  or larger group than the immediate family as part of or a extension of the family or social group.

Reply

cab21 replied on Tue, Jan 1 2013 1:01 PM

rated by 0 users

joseph smith was leader of church and government of the mormon community. both seem like they fit "force, coerce, or deceive". can organisations led by the same person have such different premises without being connected?

Reply

cab21 replied on Tue, Jan 1 2013 2:21 PM

rated by 0 users

can't there also be religions with a govt propaganda effort such as theocracy like gary north talks about or is it just the other way?

Reply

cab21 replied on Tue, Jan 1 2013 4:38 PM

rated by 0 users

well if the religion says god gives authority for a government, then god would be given authority for something bad, or it's humans using deception.

Reply

cab21 replied on Tue, Jan 1 2013 6:18 PM

rated by 0 users

so what does it mean when someone says they are obeying god if that is not part of religion?

Reply

Wibee replied on Tue, Jan 1 2013 8:49 PM

rated by 0 users

No.  They want to set up a safety net for people to fall back on in times of trouble.  They have no sinister motives besides ignorance.  

Reply

shackleford replied on Tue, Jan 1 2013 10:10 PM

rated by 0 users

Wibee:

No.  They want to set up a safety net for people to fall back on in times of trouble.  They have no sinister motives besides ignorance.  

 

Hahahh.

Reply

thetabularasa replied on Wed, Jan 2 2013 9:56 AM

rated by 0 users

Yes, but unfortunately, this is only one aspect of statism, albeit a very popular one. The Democrats are trying to make everyone a socialist, yet in essence, so are Republicans. The Democrats push the large state agenda where everyone "deserves" wealth, yet the incomprehensible disconnect between the wealth they receive and where they get it from is sad, as government produces nothing but only steals from those who do produce. As for the Republican side of things, many, many Republicans look to the government--specifically the federal government--to provide security on police state levels, whereby many of them even want our morality regulated (this is a quotation from one hardcore Republican I spoke with earlier). These people are ok with things such as the Patriot Act, and they'd be fine with having armed guards quartering every room of the house. The police and military are practically gods in the eyes of these people. It's scary. But if you ask me, I'd say the Democrat party is worse than the Republican party due to a complete lack of financial consideration. They act as though they truly believe money grows on trees and scarcity is non-existent, and that the only thing coming in between them and their "deserved" guvment check is the rich business owners.

Reply

cab21 replied on Wed, Jan 2 2013 11:02 PM

rated by 0 users

 many people have business because someone built infrastructure. infrastructure is not magic in that it's somehow productive if built privatly yet not productive if built publicly. not many people don't use public roads or do business with people thatdon't  use public roads and infrastructure, so i figure it's logical to say public roads are deemed more productive than not using public roads. people are surely willing to buy real estate near public roads and start business such as gas stations.

Reply

Anenome replied on Thu, Jan 3 2013 1:53 AM

rated by 0 users

cab21:

 many people have business because someone built infrastructure.

Ah, a restatement of the ol' Elizabeth Warren argument.

cab21:

infrastructure is not magic in that it's somehow productive if built privatly yet not productive if built publicly. not many people don't use public roads or do business with people thatdon't  use public roads and infrastructure, so i figure it's logical to say public roads are deemed more productive than not using public roads. people are surely willing to buy real estate near public roads and start business such as gas stations.

The argument only works if it were impossible to have private roads and private infrastructure, all of which is paid for use.

Since it is possible, and the public roads only exist because of government monopoly, it's a less than convincing argument. Besides which, even under the present system, you pay for use in the way of taxes. Thus you don't owe for use as if infrastructure usage became a debt. You've paid for use, you're square. You owe others nothing.

Reply

ToxicAssets replied on Sat, Jan 5 2013 7:51 AM

rated by 0 users

No2statism:

I do, but I'm wondering what you thought so that's why I'm asking.

The US Democratic Party is too big an organization, made of several parts seeking several objectives, and therefore it's very problematic to boil down an entire agenda to any specific single goal.

But it's fair to say that a lot of what the Democratic party elected officials try to accomplish is something like that, whether they explicit express this intention through their rhetorics or they only reveal it by their political action.

And "on welfare" and "as many people as possible" are always difficult things to define. That may sound good as part of an inflamatory speech, but carry very little practical meaning.

A more precise assessment would be that in the current political situation of the US, the general democrat gets his electoral edge over a general republican adversary largely by shifting the perception of his constituency towards the potential benefits and away from the potential costs these constituents would get from a more or less general increment on government welfare programs.

I think such statement would be acceptable regardless of ideological favoritisms.

Of course, such perceptions need not be realistic for such a general Democrat strategy to work. People vote based on their perceptions, not on objective hard facts. Their perception may be more or less related to the facts, but it's usually easier to manipulate perceptions than underlying facts.

And a major way to do so is to getting lots of people directly assisted by some welfare program, making perceived benefits very clear, while concealing the real costs the best way possible, which is not that hard to do given the dispersion and non-specificity of their manifestation as the different forms of taxation.

Reply

ToxicAssets replied on Sat, Jan 5 2013 9:07 AM

rated by 0 users

Even though a general strategy for a general republican would somehow need to deal with this general democrat strategy of "spreading welfare presence", and the republican rhetoric may try to give the impression of "cutting taxes (costs)" in some general sense, it's an error to assume that this necessarily means that republicans are seeking for contractions of government overall expenditures.

That's hardly the case, since professional politicians have enormous vested interests in increasing government expenditures on the sectors where they can leverage political power from increased expenditures. 

If they don't do it, they won't find much political success.

Welfare programs generally, though that is not always the case, form a major Democrat source of political exploitation.

And welfare costs, either in terms actual budget or in terms of perceived negative incentives towards productivity, are often understood by a significant fraction of the given constituency of a more conservative persuasion, therefore many republicans try to appeal to them, while trying to conceal the costs of their own political machines, which are generally of a more secretive nature. On the federal level, common partners of republicans in recent times have been the military-industrial compex and the energy sector, which are usually among the major beneficiaries of shifted welfare resources, rather than the politically disorganized tax-payer. But these alliances also change.

The general public perceptions of these political costs oscillate with time, and so a party may be prominent for years until it is surpassed by the other.

Reply

shackleford replied on Sat, Jan 5 2013 9:11 AM

rated by 0 users

Where did the money come from in the first place to build the "Infrastructure"? It sure as hell didn't come from government. I don't see how people persisently fail to grasp this very simple concept. Government doesn't create wealth. Anything that comes from government was funded by productive citizenry.

Reply

Jack Roberts replied on Sat, Jan 5 2013 9:20 AM

rated by 0 users

The goal of the government is to increase revenue and sustain itself. The politicians and the state in general just uses ethical issues as justification for spending money and to gain votes. The other mechanism at work at least in the UK is that they try and use taxation to reduce costs by manipulating the population while simultaneously over spending. example they spend £100 billion on health care but have high taxes on cigarettes apparently because it costs the NHS billions £ per year, due to the health risks associated with tobacco. When realy the tax on tobacco is just another revenue stream that due to the health considerations has become a good candidate for high taxes because the topic has a popular negative sentiment.

So the goal of welfare fits nicely in to the framework because it is popular with the voters and creates people dependent on the state which further sustains it.

Reply

ToxicAssets replied on Sat, Jan 5 2013 10:27 AM

rated by 0 users

Jack Roberts:

The goal of the government is to increase revenue and sustain itself. The politicians and the state in general just uses ethical issues as justification for spending money and to gain votes. 

That pretty much sums it up.

The thing is that government or state is an abstraction for what political and bureaucratic creatures are doing as a group.

And they are seldom doing anything as a group.

They are each fighting for their own prominence. Sometimes they form temporary or persistent alliances, but that's all.

Some may feel they can benefit from proposing or pushing a welfare or a civil rights bill, others may feel they can benefit from opposing it.

This is all very circumstantial. They need to juggle the interests of their political backers, their allies, their constituents (if they are elected officials), and also need to make it harder for their direct adversaries.

Reply

Jack Roberts replied on Sat, Jan 5 2013 1:17 PM

rated by 0 users

That pretty much sums it up.

The thing is that government or state is an abstraction for what political and bureaucratic creatures are doing as a group.

And they are seldom doing anything as a group.

They are each fighting for their own prominence. Sometimes they form temporary or persistent alliances, but that's all.

Some may feel they can benefit from proposing or pushing a welfare or a civil rights bill, others may feel they can benefit from opposing it.

This is all very circumstantial. They need to juggle the interests of their political backers, their allies, their constituents (if they are elected officials), and also need to make it harder for their direct adversaries.

Yes I agree, the individuals in the state or the employees of the state operate for their own self interest primarily, but collectively as a "company ethos" they try to generate revenue in order to sustain the state, which is ultimately a part of their self interest as they are employees. If state employees are against welfare or big spending programs of any kind, they get a lot of resistance from the other state employees who are in favour of it. This same mechanism is at work when people try and cut the state, the employees of the state resist the cuts as it goes against their self interest. But it is still possible, in conversation at least, to refer to the state collectively, especially as it is a unique sort of entity that collectivises self-interest.

Reply

ToxicAssets replied on Sat, Jan 5 2013 7:27 PM

rated by 0 users

Yes, of course there's some corporative culture and protectionism among bureaucrats, members of parties and sometimes even between political figures from opposing sides, something which becomes specially noticeable when one group is threatened of extinction.

But there's also checks and balances. When the growth of the state-like apparatus is particularly favorable to an specific political machine, the other interest groups will find ways to limit it. They understand that after a certain point, if a group controls too much power it is in position to take over all others and establish an hegemonic rule.

Like every mafia cartel, it doesn't generally over expand indefinetly due to mutual self-interested control between the groups. 

Reply

cab21 replied on Mon, Jan 7 2013 12:07 AM

rated by 0 users

Where did the money come from in the first place to build the "Infrastructure"? It sure as hell didn't come from government. I don't see how people persisently fail to grasp this very simple concept. Government doesn't create wealth. Anything that comes from government was funded by productive citizenry.

government is simply the citizens, the citizens form the government the same way citizens form a business, a government is a form of business.

mcdonalds the legal fiction did not create any wealth either, as people acted to create the wealth and mcdonalds simply gets funds invested in it by real people. the legal fiction itself is not a actor that created anything. 

 there has yet to be a government started  and run by simply by legal fiction with no human involvement.

wealth for both private and public comes from people, not legal fictions, but both organizations public and private can affect future wealth creation.

interstate 5 has not reduced the wealth of everyone who has used interstate 5, many have created more wealth by use of interstate 5 and i'm sure there is a net increase in wealth from the existance of interstate 5, and this increase in wealth is there whether or not there is public or private ownership of the interstate 5.

Reply

cab21 replied on Mon, Jan 7 2013 5:37 PM

rated by 0 users

a net increase in wealth can be the result of  interaction that voluntary, involuntary, and/or a mix of the two. increase of wealth is not a matter how how moral that increase in wealth is.

how many farmers only work with animals that volunteered to be on the farm, volunteered to be butchered, volunteered to work the land? how many children volunteered to do all the work they are given in a family and approve of how the wealth the children generate is used?

Reply

Malachi replied on Mon, Jan 7 2013 5:44 PM

rated by 0 users

a net increase in wealth can be the result of  interaction that voluntary, involuntary, and/or a mix of the two.

how many farmers only work with animals that volunteered to be on the farm, volunteered to be butchered, volunteered to work the land?

how many children volunteered to do all the work they are given in a family and approve of how the wealth the children generate is used?

Reply

cab21 replied on Mon, Jan 7 2013 6:58 PM

rated by 0 users

wealth, assets , resources, human and material capital, access. one way to measure is interstate 5 and it's traffic  and trade volume volume vs some nature trail and it's volume of trade. there is more wealth interacting on interstate 5 than a bike trail for instance.

plants nor animals benefit from the wealth people force them to create for them. i was saying a farmer can gain wealth by killing his animal and trading it, it is wealth generated by  a mix of the animal and the farmer.

government does not prohibit children from starting their own households. there can always be a black market for this.

i think parts of government have stemmed from parenting practices and heiarchy, i doubt government happens independantly of family. bigger government happend after family government. having the 21 and over males be the only one to vote must have stemmed from families where head's of household were 21 and over males and that family governing was taken to town and society governing. in places like the church i know i have seen heiarchies where children are supposed to be the lowest and obey whatever the father says, and older males have church governing power. so depends on what it means by the government, as families, churches, tribes, and whatnot have created definitions where some are to govern the lives of others and others are to submit to those that give themselves the power to govern.

Reply

Malachi replied on Mon, Jan 7 2013 7:09 PM

rated by 0 users

wealth, assets , resources, human and material capital, access. one way to measure is interstate 5 and it's traffic  and trade volume volume vs some nature trail and it's volume of trade. there is more wealth interacting on interstate 5 than a bike trail for instance.

I would rather bike to work on a nature trail than risk my life at 70 mph in a 2 ton missile surrounded by other multi-ton missiles. So I guess I am saying I dont care if a tyrant can make a bunch of useless "wealth" I want quality of life. I would even have went with material goods, but traffic? Lol ok go have your tyrant, see how much traffic you get when theres a curfew.

plants nor animals benefit from the wealth people force them to create for them. i was saying a farmer can gain wealth by killing his animal and trading it, it is wealth generated by  a mix of the animal and the farmer.

government does not prohibit children from starting their own households. there can always be a black market for this.

i think parts of government have stemmed from parenting practices and heiarchy, i doubt government happens independantly of family. bigger government happend after family government. having the 21 and over males be the only one to vote must have stemmed from families where head's of household were 21 and over males and that family governing was taken to town and society governing. in places like the church i know i have seen heiarchies where children are supposed to be the lowest and obey whatever the father says, and older males have church governing power. so depends on what it means by the government, as families, churches, tribes, and whatnot have created definitions where some are to govern the lives of others and others are to submit to those that give themselves the power to govern.