Hmm, seems as if I missed that part in the Constitution where it says the Government has the right to take some of my hard earned money and give it to people that are "Less fortunate". Don't get me wrong, it's not right to let these people suffer like that but it's also not right taking money out of someone else's pocket to give to these people. Many of which don't even have jobs or even try to better their lives. Things like welfare are unconstitutional and the fact that many people praise it and live off it without even attempting to support themselves is outrageous.

Calling upon the Government to help you out for every single problem is not the right answer. I think we can all agree that when the government gets involved in anything it ends up either becoming worse or just flat out broken. People need to stop looking for that quick fix, it's failed in the past and it will fail again. A perfect example would be our economy. Everyone had to be treated fairly, buying bigger homes than they previously could, as well as getting larger loans that they couldn't pay for. Guess who decided to make the call to allow the selling of riskier loans to people? THE GOVERNMENT! And everyone seems to expect these same people to not only fix the problem they started but also fix the problem of poverty and "equality", but at the same time they'd just be hurting things like small businesses in the process who can already barely get by in this horrible economy which was a direct result of their idiocy.

If you want this kind of "equality" move to Russia where they already have the What's mine is yours and What yours is mine policies in place. Look how well they've done with Communism. It's not like it failed for them, right? Last time I checked every single time Communism is tried it's resulting in failure. I have no idea why people are so intent on giving it a try here in America. Call it what you like, it's still Communism. You can spray paint a peice of dog shit green, it's still dog shit.

People need to stop sticking their hand out and asking for help and actually try helping themselves for once. And don't give me that bullshit about some of these people not having the opportunity. This is America we are talking about, and even Obama praises that opportunity, not only does he praise it he also has lived it. He came from nothing and is now going to be our next President. Don't you think it's a bit hypocritical to tell everyone your going to help them out by taxining people who make more than a certain amount of money because it's unfair to the poor and "less fortunate", yet at the same time brag how you went from nothing to the very top of our own Government?

So from what I am to understand, rich people are horrible people because they chose to better themselves and worked hard to get where they are today, and poor people are in need of help because many of them choose to not better their lives but instead ask for handouts. So we help them by taking money from the rich people. And at the same time we can also brag about the American dream and that only in America could someone come from nothing to become our next President! Makes a lot of sense, I get it now!

That doesn't sound even slightly hypocritical to any of you? It's either one or the other. Either these people wont help themselves because they can't, or they can help themselves because this is America: The Land of Opportunity but just choose not to. You can't have it both ways.

First of all, Russia has been a capitalist country since the Sovient Union collapsed in 1992.  And you say EVERY single time communism is tried is results in failure?  Well, what about Communist China (you know...the country that supplies us all our stuff to buy right now? The country that owns a bunch of the United States debt)?

If I'm going to move anywhere, it would be the Netherlands (a socialist democracy).  However, it's extremely difficult to immigrate to the Netherlands, plus I don't have the cash to buy a passport, so I certainly don't have "move out of the country" funds, and I don't speak Dutch.

Is that not part of our own Government's doing? Did you know that not even the Chinese would buy chinese made toys for their children? Yet somehow they seem to make quite a pretty penny off us for this. Again, we deserve to be in debt and have all these problems. No one is to blame but us. Stop pointing the fingure and start fixing the problems already.

Communism does fail, it's human nature to want more and more power. More power comes with larger responsibilities and we all know that it get's to a certain point where corruption is abroad. Hence why Communism fails. China may be doing fine now, but eventually the corruption will be the end of their current economic success. You can't expect to give people large amounts of power and not have them abuse it.

I hear Panama is a nice place to live at the moment..

Sigh.  

Let me walk you through this:

I support Bush's policies in general.  I don't support Obama's stated policies.  I will oppose Obama's policies tooth and nail because I think they're bad for the country.

The problem with liberals is that you guys always seem to think it's about emotions. It's not.

I didn't vote for McCain. So it's not about "sour grapes".

I don't want to support Obama because I don't want him to be effective. I don't want any of his stated policy "changes" to get implemented.  It's not personal. I don't hate him (which is a lot better than the way Bush was treated by the left). But I don't want the country on the track Obama and his supporters want it on. I don't want a nation "united" on socialistic or left-wing ideology. 

Is that clearer?

When is the last time you read the constitution? Cause the first sentence is....

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Welfare means well being, that doesn't mean take money out of someones paycheck and give it to someone else. What I said still stands. No where in the Constitution does it say the Government has the right to take money out of my paycheck to give to someone else, that doesn't promote well being it promotes laziness. Good luck finding that one anywhere in it.

Australia has a smaller population than some US states that is nearly all white, nearly all one culture.

What "lesson" do you think the US should learn from Australia? 

Walking lock-step is easy. Functioning as a stable democracy for 200+ years with massive demographic differneces within is one of the things that has made the United States the US the richest, more powerful, and most influential nation in the world.

I closed the Palin thread.

And I am biased. I make no bones about it. I'm a conservative and I don't make any claim of objectivity. 

I would close this thread too if it became a flame war or if the original topic was insulting and juvenille (which I thought the Palin one was).

Both the highlighted terms could be interpetted towards a state where the distribution of community wealth could be applied.  Having said that . . "general welfare" is everyone . . not those that have failed for this or that reason.  It should promote the general welfare of everyone evenly.

You might want to research this a bit before saying that.  You are making a modern intrepretation to something that explicitly didn't mean that.  The federalist papers discuss this to some extent (written by Madison and Hamilton) to expressly state that that phrase most certainly does not indicate that the federal government should be able to take money from one citizen to give to another. 

The founding fathers would almost certainly consider the taking from one man to give to another an act of tyranny.

At that point it was.  The personal attacks directed to me continued.  Nothing was done as this occurred other than Lantec claiming I was intolerant.  ID at one point said play nice yet ignored the ignorance of the above mentioned post. 

The premise of this thread is duplicitous for it attempts to present what is a one-sided view as a fact while ignoring that intolerance knows no such politically based boundries.

Yes I am. I have to. Getting rid of modern day welfare is not possible now. I can't look at it from a 200 year old perspective no matter how much I would like to see welfare reduced to a bare minimum.

So descriptives are now personal attacks?  WHat newspeak words would you have me pen?

And I only called one person a liar, and not on this thread.

Welcome to 1984!

Apparently personal attacks are anything descriptive now.  ok for them to say far worse, but for us to say "hypocrite" to describe a hypocritical action is now taboo - said Big Brother.

We should send Elizabeth Kucinic in to negotiate a "Historical Patriotic Tax" with the 1% wealthiest. Convince them they will go down in History as great American Patriots if they collectively dumped 1 Trillion $ back into the economy right now. Because I'd give her a Trillion if I had it.

Brad....population size-wise and you're right.  Having a country size essentially the same as the US but with less than a 1/10th of the population means there's a wee bit more 'elbow room'...but population diversity of nationalities probably rivals/passes any other country on the planet.  Eg.  Melbourne is still classified as the world's 3rd largest Greek city [and that includes Greece].  Since we got rid of the Liberal-based white-Australia policy that was probably mostly a knee-jerk reaction to Japan's bombing/attacks on our soil the majority of Immigration has come from Asia/Africa...