![NOW Is the Time For All Good Men to [Get On Public Assistance]](http://images.sodahead.com/polls/003311791/ef138c1bc3eb3518915a268e4e1fab31_xlarge.jpeg "NOW Is the Time For All Good Men to [Get On Public Assistance]")
NOW Is the Time For All Good Men to [Get On Public Assistance]
Transquesta
2012/11/09 23:24:56
No, I haven't lost my mind. Please to hear me out. :-)
Today, while "a friend of mine" was happily blowing leaves from one end of his yard to the other, his calm was disturbed when a couple of 'sports enthusiasts' ran by gleefully discussing the fun they'd been having by "rubbing the salt in the wounds of angry Republicans." Although he's not a republican by any stretch, my friend began to get angry at the unapologetic orgy of schadenfreude taking place in front of him. As the two Obama supporters disappeared at the end of the street, an idea began to form in the mind of my friend.
Standing before you is a monster of unimaginable malevolence and power. Trying to defeat it by any normal means would be suicide. It has given you three choices; be destroyed by it all at once, be slowly consumed by it, or become dependent upon it. How does one kill a monster of such magnitude and ill will? You can't engage it in battle and you can't make it better by 'working within the system'--a/k/a its belly. The only option you have is to play the rules by the monster's game. You simply starve it to death. How?
By becoming 'dependent' on it. You avail yourself of every resource it says you 'qualify for' by whatever means it has of determining your 'entitlement.' You take from it whatever it will give you while simultaneously ensuring that you produce nothing on which it can feed. You learn the ropes and you become as 'poor' as you need to be in order to win its 'sympathy.' You ask it over and over again for this, that or the other resource while quietly relieving yourself of whatever it can get in return.
"My friend" suggests that, practically, the only way to do this is to become a recipient of the monster's 'welfare' while reducing your production of 'consumables (I think he meant income)' to zero. He says that if you have any ethical compunction against taking the proceeds of the resources of other victims of the monster, you could just store--as in a bank or gold for instance--or give away an amount of your own resources equivalent to that which you take from the monster and (here's the juicy part) donate it to a tax-deductible charity, the libertarian party, the NRA, etc. :-) If enough people do this, eventually the monster would grow weaker and weaker, and finally collapse under the weight of its own depravity/rapaciousness. The monster is going to die in any case when it runs out of victims, so why not help it along? Call it assisted suicide.
Needless to say, all prospective victims of this monster would be wise to exercise extreme caution when bringing this plan of passive resistance (a form of hyper-compliance, actually) to fruition. Done right, nothing suggested here is, by any stretch of the monster's definition, 'illegal.' Done wrong. . .well, refer to the potential fates above. (Did my friend happen to mention that part of the definition of being "consumed by the monster" could include a ten year stretch married to Tyrone on account of a charge of tax evasion? Why, yes. Yes he did. :-))
Finally, consider how much quicker the socialist dystopia in Atlas Shrugged would have come to a crashing end had the inhabitants of Galt's Gulch gotten on welfare as well as shrugged? Just a thought. :-)
(Note: if you like my friend's idea, please feel free to share it.)
Today, while "a friend of mine" was happily blowing leaves from one end of his yard to the other, his calm was disturbed when a couple of 'sports enthusiasts' ran by gleefully discussing the fun they'd been having by "rubbing the salt in the wounds of angry Republicans." Although he's not a republican by any stretch, my friend began to get angry at the unapologetic orgy of schadenfreude taking place in front of him. As the two Obama supporters disappeared at the end of the street, an idea began to form in the mind of my friend.
Standing before you is a monster of unimaginable malevolence and power. Trying to defeat it by any normal means would be suicide. It has given you three choices; be destroyed by it all at once, be slowly consumed by it, or become dependent upon it. How does one kill a monster of such magnitude and ill will? You can't engage it in battle and you can't make it better by 'working within the system'--a/k/a its belly. The only option you have is to play the rules by the monster's game. You simply starve it to death. How?
By becoming 'dependent' on it. You avail yourself of every resource it says you 'qualify for' by whatever means it has of determining your 'entitlement.' You take from it whatever it will give you while simultaneously ensuring that you produce nothing on which it can feed. You learn the ropes and you become as 'poor' as you need to be in order to win its 'sympathy.' You ask it over and over again for this, that or the other resource while quietly relieving yourself of whatever it can get in return.
"My friend" suggests that, practically, the only way to do this is to become a recipient of the monster's 'welfare' while reducing your production of 'consumables (I think he meant income)' to zero. He says that if you have any ethical compunction against taking the proceeds of the resources of other victims of the monster, you could just store--as in a bank or gold for instance--or give away an amount of your own resources equivalent to that which you take from the monster and (here's the juicy part) donate it to a tax-deductible charity, the libertarian party, the NRA, etc. :-) If enough people do this, eventually the monster would grow weaker and weaker, and finally collapse under the weight of its own depravity/rapaciousness. The monster is going to die in any case when it runs out of victims, so why not help it along? Call it assisted suicide.
Needless to say, all prospective victims of this monster would be wise to exercise extreme caution when bringing this plan of passive resistance (a form of hyper-compliance, actually) to fruition. Done right, nothing suggested here is, by any stretch of the monster's definition, 'illegal.' Done wrong. . .well, refer to the potential fates above. (Did my friend happen to mention that part of the definition of being "consumed by the monster" could include a ten year stretch married to Tyrone on account of a charge of tax evasion? Why, yes. Yes he did. :-))
Finally, consider how much quicker the socialist dystopia in Atlas Shrugged would have come to a crashing end had the inhabitants of Galt's Gulch gotten on welfare as well as shrugged? Just a thought. :-)
(Note: if you like my friend's idea, please feel free to share it.)
Top Opinion
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Daring Blasphemer BN-0 2012/11/10 00:36:37
+13I love this idea. GO. Please quit the workforce and try to live off the government tit. Anyone who thinks this is a good idea has NEVER lived on welfare. Well, I grew up poor in various roach infested trailers across Missouri. We were never on welfare but we were on food stamps throughout my childhood. (My sisters and I are now ALL productive members of society.) Many of the parents of my friends WERE on welfare and it is NOT easy. You can not make ends meet. It can not be done. You have no idea what you are talking about! Go ahead give up your house because welfare is not enough to make those payments and if they find out you are getting money anywhere else they will remove that much from your check keeping you as poor as possible. Your credit is going to be destroyed. Your car is going to be repossessed and you are going to be living in a bad neighborhood with your cable TV and your iPhone; dependent on public transportation while you desperately try to find a job after you wake from this venomous hatefest and realize just how badly you screwed up!
A more positive alternative would be to launch, nurture and live a number of positive 'slow movements' that add up to healing and building not just a nation but also ourselves. http://sari0009.xanga.com/755...
You never know it could bring a No confidence vote by his own party
One thing's for damned sure. The system has inoculated itself against being changed, repaired or maintained via the usual (electoral) process. Knowing this, it becomes incumbent on all Americans who CLAIM to give a damn to come up with an alternative method. Your method is. . .?
NOW. . .as for humbling ourselves and praying, I think that'd be a fantastic idea. Not very likely in the current climate, especially given that the arrogance of secularism/atheism feeds on itself, but a grand idea nevertheless.
Tell me, what sorts of intellectual fancies did he conceive during the last four years of hatred, fear-mongering and misinformation condoned by the right wing induce in him?
I do imagine, though, that he would contrive a similar plan if he had.
Then he hasn't been looking.
When one of the leaders of a party states, unequivocally, that the goal of the party is to stonewall everything a sitting President does for four years to deny him re-election, that's fairly clear evidence of the same kind of institutionalized political hatred that the two idiots mentioned in your original post were guilty of.
He lives in a predominantly liberal area of a major metro. Such encounters aren't very likely.
"When one of the leaders of a party states, unequivocally, that the goal of the party is to stonewall everything a sitting President does for four years to deny him re-election, that's fairly clear evidence of the same kind of institutionalized political hatred that the two idiots mentioned in your original post were guilty of."
At least you have sufficient intellectual integrity to have characterized the two runners correctly. Unfortunately, obstructionism isn't new and it HARDLY constitutes "institutionalized political hatred." I was really hoping for a better example. Sniff. :-)
Ah, that makes sense.
"At least you have sufficient intellectual integrity to have characterized the two runners correctly."
Hey, an idiot is an idiot. I've said many times before on this site that I'm an Independent Moderate and it's true. If a Liberal acts the fool, I'll call him on it just as quickly as a Conservative.
"Unfortunately, obstructionism isn't new and it HARDLY constitutes "institutionalized political hatred." I was really hoping for a better example. Sniff. :-)"
Fair enough. How about the tacit condoning of the Birther nonsense (though that HAS gotten better as time has gone on)? How about the constant fear-mongering about Obamacare (Death Panels, et al)? How about the thinly (and sometime not-so-thinly) veiled insinuations that Obama and other Democrats are somehow less American, or even the "enemy", because they disagree with how the country should be run?
Closer. MUCH closer. Personally I think birthers are morons with OCD as opposed to haters, but admittedly the distinctions are subtle.
"How about the constant fear-mongering about Obamacare (Death Panels, et al)?"
That, the existence of death panels, is a valid concern given the 'net effect' of Obamacare--millions more added to a system from which doctors are leaving in droves. SOMEBODY will have to be placed in the position of rationing services. Either way this isn't "institutionalized political hatred." Even if it were it'd be hatred of an idea, not of a man, persons or groups.
"How about the thinly (and sometime not-so-thinly) veiled insinuations that Obama and other Democrats are somehow less American, or even the 'enemy', because they disagree with how the country should be run?"
You're getting warmer, although, again, the 'hatred' here is focused more on an idea than the people who subscribe to same. To someone who values the original ideals on which this country was built, liberalism IS 'the enemy.' It is antithetical to individual autonomy, free enterprise, etc.
That already happens, except right now it's the private insurers "rationing care" based on profit margin. Given the choice, I'll choose an inefficient bureaucracy over outright fraud and malice.
"Either way this isn't "institutionalized political hatred.""
Sure it is. It's willful misrepresentation with the express intent of fomenting fear and hatred. Republicans are (in)famous for using fear to motivate their base. This is just another example.
"Even if it were it'd be hatred of an idea, not of a man, persons or groups."
You're the only one making that distinction. I didn't. But I disagree with your characterization anyway, since I doubt very much that they would have spread such fear if the idea had been a Republican one. It's about demonizing any idea by Democrats, and that's the sort of institutional hatred I'm talking about.
"You're getting warmer, although, again, the 'hatred' here is focused more on an idea than the people who subscribe to same."
Again, that's a distinction only you are making. I'm talking about institutional political hatred in general. It doesn't matter if it's against one man, one party or one idea. It's the politics of fear, anger and division that I'm talking abo...
That already happens, except right now it's the private insurers "rationing care" based on profit margin. Given the choice, I'll choose an inefficient bureaucracy over outright fraud and malice.
"Either way this isn't "institutionalized political hatred.""
Sure it is. It's willful misrepresentation with the express intent of fomenting fear and hatred. Republicans are (in)famous for using fear to motivate their base. This is just another example.
"Even if it were it'd be hatred of an idea, not of a man, persons or groups."
You're the only one making that distinction. I didn't. But I disagree with your characterization anyway, since I doubt very much that they would have spread such fear if the idea had been a Republican one. It's about demonizing any idea by Democrats, and that's the sort of institutional hatred I'm talking about.
"You're getting warmer, although, again, the 'hatred' here is focused more on an idea than the people who subscribe to same."
Again, that's a distinction only you are making. I'm talking about institutional political hatred in general. It doesn't matter if it's against one man, one party or one idea. It's the politics of fear, anger and division that I'm talking about.
"To someone who values the original ideals on which this country was built, liberalism IS 'the enemy.'"
That is because they cannot conceive that a Liberal is just as interested in keeping this country great as they are. They are taught to hate and fear Liberalism... indeed, the portion of your post I just quoted agrees implicitly that Republicans hate that which they do not agree with.
Further, the characterization that Liberalism is counter to the ideals of the Founding Fathers is part of the problem. Setting aside the deification of the Founding Fathers, with the doctrine of their infallibility that it engenders, it assumes that there is only one valid way of interpreting what they wanted. It assumes that the Founding Fathers, if they lived today, would still be bound to ideas that were only valid in the closing years of the 18th century, not the opening of the 21st. I decline to accept that.
Keep in mind that there were some Founding Fathers who would likely have supported universal, federalized health care. There is strong evidence that both John Adams and George Washignton were advocates of universal health care paid by federal taxes.
"It is antithetical to individual autonomy, free enterprise, etc."
That is only one opinion of it. Another is that by freeing the citizenry from the need to worry about providing for their own health care, they are free to pursue self-fulfillment.
Free enterprise would be a wonderful goal... if it were not always attended by the abuses and exploitation of unregulated capitalism. Free Enterprise is just as evil as Communism in the hands of the wrong men. The Founding Fathers would have been aghast at the age of robber barons, had they been alive to see it.
The chief reason for this offer, I am convinced, was that I was employed by an agency charged with the regulation of certain energy industries. For two or three years before I accepted this offer, my own attempts to carry out my duty to the taxpayers had been systematically discouraged by upper management, in response to a majority in Congress that imagined a free market to be the simple absence of regulation by an elected government. As Adam Smith would tell you, an unregulated oligopoly is not a free market.
So why hire him to begin with? Now this is a person who is a hard worker, shows up on time, doesn't call in sick and doesn't complain. Something was not adding up.
In case anyone is not familiar with this: it incentivizes employers to hire certain classes of people: those on welfare. Basically this is Corporate Welfare. And these companies hire people, keep them for the maximum amount of time to collect the credit and then replace them. Or they hire them, give them the paperwork and find out they don't qualify, then come up with some bogus reason to let them go. (to make it seem like they aren't abusing the system).
Yup that's right. Since he was not on welfare or ever been on welfare he was lost his job.
which humanity sucks at-
reining in desire-
Siddhartha was right...eh???
regardless of the level of difficulty...
most of humanity still sucks at reining in desires-
only those who successfully limit desire...
understand the rewards thereof-