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[demon]

This guys is not going to be president.

He looks like a Harland Williams wax statue that's been left out in the sun for an hour.

 

[Diablos]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/...t-benefits_n_4380190.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans controlling the House oppose a drive by Democrats to renew jobless benefits averaging less than $300 a week nationwide for the long-term unemployed, a senior GOP lawmaker said Tuesday.

"I don't see much appetite on our side for continuing this extension of benefits," said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla. "I just don't."

Benefits for 1.3 million long-term unemployed people expire just three days after Christmas. Lawmakers say another 1.9 million people would miss out on the benefits in the first six months of next year.

Democrats are pressing for legislation continuing a program in place since 2008 that gives federally paid benefits to jobless people after their 26 weeks of state benefits run out. Federal benefits have typically been offered during periods of high unemployment, though fewer weeks of extended jobless benefits are available than in previous years. The unemployment rate is averaging 7.3 percent nationwide.

"These have been extraordinary extensions, and the Republican position all along has been 'we need to go back to normal here at some point,'" Cole said.

The additional weeks of benefits have been extended each year since 2009, sometimes after bitter battles over whether they should be "paid for" with spending cuts elsewhere in the budget. They have usually been part of larger packages extending tax cuts, which has made it easier for Republicans to support. That's not the case now, however, because most Bush-era tax cuts were permanently extended in January.

Democrats are pressing to make the jobless aid part of Congress' year-end agenda and hope to include it in a budget pact that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash., are trying to assemble.

The Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday that the Democratic legislation to extend federal benefits to people who have exhausted their state benefits would cost $25 billion but stimulate the economy by 0.2 percent next year and create 200,000 jobs.

Long-term unemployment aid once added up to 73 weeks in federal benefits to the 26 weeks of state benefits for a maximum of 99 weeks. Now, 73 weeks is the maximum allowed from both sources combined, with 54 weeks being the nationwide average.

The GOP can shut down the Government because Ted Cruz wanted to chase a pipe dream, and that cost $24 billion. GOP was just fine with that.

Yet extending emergency unemployment benefits for a year will cost another $25 billion but it actually keeps people from going completely bankrupt and allows them to work some kind of job while getting partial benefits, but the GOP says we just can't do that anymore. The vast majority of people on UE lost their job through no fault of their own. I'm one of them. None of us deserve this shit.

So basically, completely irrational temper tantrums > keeping people from losing everything

Thanks for nothing, GOP.

We have a party controlling a branch of Government that thinks it is okay to piss away $24 bil for nothing (while simultaneously holding the world economy hostage quite literally), but not for keeping people from slipping even more into poverty and despair.

Some country we live in.

 

[speculawyer]

He looks like a Harland Williams wax statue that's been left out in the sun for an hour.

Nice.

 

[RustyNails]

Rep. Joe Kennedy joins Immigration fast

Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.) agreed Tuesday to join other activists in an ongoing fast designed to compel the House of Representatives to begin debating proposals to overhaul the nation's immigration laws.

At a ceremony on the Mall two blocks from the U.S. Capitol, Kennedy ceremoniously began his fast by accepting a small cross from Eliseo Medina, a longtime immigration rights activist and labor leader who was concluding a 22-day fast Tuesday.

Medina's fast will also be continued by Rev. Jim Wallis, of Sojourners. Kennedy plans to fast through midday Wednesday and "pass it on" to other activists Wednesday, he said in brief comments to reporters.

"Immigration reform is something that’s been important to my family. My uncle was a champion of it when he was in the Senate," Kennedy said in reference to his great uncle, the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). "At this point, we need to get some movement on this bill and whatever we can do to try to break the logjam is important, so I wanted to be a part of it."

Kennedy, 33, is a freshman lawmaker who last year won the seat of former Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.).

Tuesday's ceremony was attended by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Labor Secretary Tom Perez, a slate of Democratic House lawmakers, and religious and labor leaders, including Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr.

Asked whether she was willing to participate in the fast, Pelosi told reporters that she's already "fasting a day here and there." As for Kennedy's participation, "He's young," she said.

Medina and three others -- Sojourners's Lisa Sharon Harper, an immigration activist from Arizona, Cristian Avila, and Korean-American rights activist Dae Joong Yoon -- have been fasting since November to draw attention to the refusal of House Republican leaders to hold votes in the full House on proposals to address immigration. They have spent most of the day in specially-heated tents and the night in nearby churches and hotels.

 

[WayneMorse]

It's really sad, but I think if they were having an actual serious hunger strike they would probably die before the GOP passes a bill.

 

[User 250141]

Shouldn't the burden of explination be on the people who choose to use the household analogy? The opposite of all those propositions aren't ever questioned for explanation.

In principle, sure, but as far as actually persuading real citizens, we need to be prepared to stick up for our ideas as much as our opponents already do.

You go to war with the analogies you have, not the analogies you want.

 

[RustyNails]

It's really sad, but I think if they were having an actual serious hunger strike they would probably die before the GOP passes a bill.

Yeah they can drink water and Kennedy is only fasting for few days. It's certainly not Gandhi's level of fasting for his dedication, but it still spreads nice awareness. Obama also visited them on Friday.

 

[Gotchaye]

Yes, but it's one thing to see people saying "omg reverse racism" with a straight face and quite another to realize that people think whites actually have it worse. I mean, it's insane. It takes literally minutes or less of research to show this is obviously incorrect.

I dunno. I just found it eye-opening.

It depends what you mean by "obviously incorrect". I think you mean that you can look and see that blacks are clearly much worse off, on average. And it's tempting to say that there's no other option but to take the liberal position that this is because of some injustice that we should be trying to fix or the straightforwardly racist position that there are important innate differences involved.

But a key feature of modern conservatism when it comes to race and sex is a denial that different outcomes must either be due to addressable injustice or innate differences (this is relaxed a little re: sex). You can certainly argue that this is just obfuscated racism or white privilege or whatever, but it's at least providing cover for people who would like to not arrive at what a lot of liberals are going to look at as the only obviously non-racist option given the fact of unequal average outcomes, and it's something I've heard expressed by a whole bunch of conservatives who at least don't consciously have anything against black people (this is also the position of a typical black conservative).

To flesh out the position real quick: black culture is toxic and is the main cause of continued unequal outcomes. Some blame for this is surely due to white people who are now long dead, but we're interested in solutions rather than in pointing fingers. We've already pretty much stamped out irrational racism and all that's left is the rational sort which is due to the unequal outcomes that we all agree obtain and toxic black culture - black people happen to actually be more likely to be X, Y, and Z, and it's not racist to recognize that as long as we keep in mind that this isn't innate or anything. Now, the liberal solution for these unequal outcomes is both immoral and a failure. It's immoral because it's just racial discrimination, and you can't fix injustice with more injustice, "the way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race", etc. Remember that white people nowadays aren't racist - it's dead people who did wrong and it's wrong to punish modern white people for that. Do you want we should all move to Europe and let the Native Americans have all the land back? The liberal solution is a failure because we've tried it and it makes things worse. Dependency, unintended consequences, liberal plantations, etc. The situation calls for tough love.

Much later edit: I guess I really didn't need to qualify with "when it comes to race and sex". This is basically the conservative position on poverty in general, right? It sucks that some people are born with many fewer opportunities, but, so sad, there's nothing to be done other than encourage bootstrapping. People born with lots of opportunities didn't wrong anyone else just by being born, and so even if redistribution worked it'd be wrong to take from them to give to others. Over Thanksgiving I had a fun conversation with my very libertarian (and straightforwardly racist) brother where he got himself into an awkward position arguing along these lines. I was pushing against the presumption that people with lots of stuff deserve all that stuff just because they were given it in mutually agreeable exchanges, since, after all, obviously if you go back far enough you can find someone getting ahead unjustly and leveraging that in the future, and nobody thinks that you have a right to stolen property just because you obtained it from the thief via a mutually agreeable exchange. He more or less said that in order for strong property rights to make any kind of sense, you have to ignore that the initial distribution was unjust. I agreed.

 

[NYCmetsfan]

^ive learned from discussions with people so many more people are racist than I would guess, even among liberals. They often use similar arguments. Their argument is the past is the past, can't address it with out being racist against whites which of course is nonsense



Also, Boehner hired McCain's immigration advisor from 2006...

Good news?

 

[Aaron Strife]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/...t-benefits_n_4380190.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

The GOP can shut down the Government because Ted Cruz wanted to chase a pipe dream, and that cost $24 billion. GOP was just fine with that.

Yet extending emergency unemployment benefits for a year will cost another $25 billion but it actually keeps people from going completely bankrupt and allows them to work some kind of job while getting partial benefits, but the GOP says we just can't do that anymore. The vast majority of people on UE lost their job through no fault of their own. I'm one of them. None of us deserve this shit.

So basically, completely irrational temper tantrums > keeping people from losing everything

Thanks for nothing, GOP.

We have a party controlling a branch of Government that thinks it is okay to piss away $24 bil for nothing (while simultaneously holding the world economy hostage quite literally), but not for keeping people from slipping even more into poverty and despair.

Some country we live in.

Sorry, we would have, but we just spent that much shutting down the government.

 

[Oblivion]

Sorry, we would have, but we just spent that much shutting down the government.

Yup. No time to be acting fiscally irresponsible now!

 

[speculawyer]

Oh, FFS, Fox News. :-/

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/speci.../12/03/grapevine-legal-personhood-chimpanzees



I'm gonna assume that is just an accident.

 

[User 250141]

I think that contemporary American culture as a whole is toxic, and the destructive effects of that culture tend to (unfortunately) fall more heavily on African-Americans and other historically disadvantaged groups that don't have as many of the social and economic resources to resist that culture.

That is, of course, unjust, but that's the current state of the world today.

 

[User 250141]

But I'm also thinking of the much more straightforward evidence of prejudice basically every time these things are studied, whether it be in "black" names getting fewer callbacks for job interviews or implicit bias tests or just looking at uneven enforcement patterns among police.

Yeah, the fact that there are these huge differences in callbacks for job interviews when you experimentally manipulate "black" vs. "white" names on resumes while keeping everything else exactly the same is about as clear an evidence for prejudice as it comes.

 

[zero shift]

Stuff.

Do conservatives have ANY evidence that more welfare makes people more dependable on things?

Sweden? No.
Finland? No.

"But they are white and not ghetto!"

Well what about Brazil?
Venezuela?

Both nations have had insane increases in social mobility since turning left wing. Venezuela you could say oil money used for mass increases in GDP, but you can't for Brazil.

 

[Gotchaye]

Yeah, the fact that there are these huge differences in callbacks for job interviews when you experimentally manipulate "black" vs. "white" names on resumes while keeping everything else exactly the same is about as clear an evidence for prejudice as it comes.

Stressing that I'm not arguing for this position, the standard response here, provided the methodology survives scrutiny (and the anti-academic bent of a lot of modern conservatism means that questioning the source is going to be a live option for many), is that this could be a rational sort of discrimination. Resumes do not provide complete information (obviously; I mean, the whole point of the experiment is that the name is providing some information that's not otherwise on the resume). Maybe black people under-perform their resumes because they got affirmative action'd into a better college such that white graduates of the same school are smarter. Maybe they're likely to have been hired at previous jobs to fill diversity slots. And so on. So even though race is being used as a factor in a decision, it's not an irrational prejudice nor does it assume innate differences between races (as a bonus this theory places ultimate blame for these discriminatory decisions on liberals who vote for things like AA).

A lot of the same kind of thinking is more visible when people talk about the gender gap in pay. The first move is to attack the source and argue down the size of the gap that needs to be explained. The second is to talk about women and men happening to be different on average in particular ways that lead to women not fighting for raises. And the last is to say that women are being rationally discriminated against because employers know that a random woman is more likely than a random man to get pregnant and need more medical care or might quit or something. Only that last is even regrettable, but corporations gonna corporation and you can't really complain that they're doing what's most profitable.

Spoiler

I read a lot of The National Review

 

[Piecake]

Stressing that I'm not arguing for this position, the standard response here, provided the methodology survives scrutiny (and the anti-academic bent of a lot of modern conservatism means that questioning the source is going to be a live option for many), is that this could be a rational sort of discrimination. Resumes do not provide complete information (obviously; I mean, the whole point of the experiment is that the name is providing some information that's not otherwise on the resume). Maybe black people under-perform their resumes because they got affirmative action'd into a better college such that white graduates of the same school are smarter. Maybe they're likely to have been hired at previous jobs to fill diversity slots. And so on. So even though race is being used as a factor in a decision, it's not an irrational prejudice nor does it assume innate differences between races (as a bonus this theory places ultimate blame for these discriminatory decisions on liberals who vote for things like AA).

A lot of the same kind of thinking is more visible when people talk about the gender gap in pay. The first move is to attack the source and argue down the size of the gap that needs to be explained. The second is to talk about women and men happening to be different on

average in particular ways that lead to women not fighting for raises. And the last is to say that women are being rationally discriminated against because employers know that a random woman is more likely than a random man to get pregnant and need more medical care or might quit or something. Only that last is even regrettable, but corporations gonna corporation and you can't really complain that they're doing what's most profitable.

Spoiler

I read a lot of The National Review

Well, we could always reform corporate charters.

I honestly find the conservative argument ridiculous. Blame AA? Okay, lets heavily invest in pre-k education, parent training and guidance, and equitable schools. No? Oh, then whats your plan to solve this?

Their answer, cut social services to get them off the government teat and give them a pair of bootstraps. Which is just absurd considering that there is good data showing the vast majority of people on social services don't become 'dependent' and that giving people a pair of bootstraps doesnt work because living in poverty is a huge hinderance of getting out of poverty

Hell, simply being in poverty causes so much stress and worry and feelings of failure that your brain actually functions worse. Yup, bootstraps are sure going to fix that. Know what will fix it though? giving poor people assistance to get them out of poverty so they can begin to help themselves.

 

[Oblivion]

Well, we could always reform corporate charters.

I honestly find the conservative argument ridiculous. Blame AA? Okay, lets heavily invest in pre-k education, parent training and guidance, and equitable schools. No? Oh, then whats your plan to solve this?

Their answer, cut social services to get them off the government teat and give them a pair of bootstraps. Which is just absurd considering that there is good data showing the vast majority of people on social services don't become 'dependent' and that giving people a pair of bootstraps doesnt work because living in poverty is a huge hinderance of getting out of poverty

Hell, simply being in poverty causes so much stress and worry and feelings of failure that your brain actually functions worse. Yup, bootstraps are sure going to fix that. Know what will fix it though? giving poor people assistance to get them out of poverty so they can begin to help themselves.

How about we use welfare funding to hire people that'll follow the poors around yelling at them for not working harder.

 

[Piecake]

How about we use welfare funding to hire people that'll follow the poors around yelling at them for not working harder.

Only if they throw food at them too. That way the poors will feel extra miserable when you watch them pick up the dirty, mushed food on the ground to hide away for late

 

[Servizio]

Only if they throw food at them too. That way the poors will feel extra miserable when you watch them pick up the dirty, mushed food on the ground to hide away for late

And if they're fat, you have someone following them around playing a tuba as well. It'd really drive home how lazy and dependent you'd have to be to continue to choose to be poor in that circumstance.

 

[Gotchaye]

Well, we could always reform corporate charters.

I honestly find the conservative argument ridiculous. Blame AA? Okay, lets heavily invest in pre-k education, parent training and guidance, and equitable schools. No? Oh, then whats your plan to solve this?

Their answer, cut social services to get them off the government teat and give them a pair of bootstraps. Which is just absurd considering that there is good data showing the vast majority of people on social services don't become 'dependent' and that giving people a pair of bootstraps doesnt work because living in poverty is a huge hinderance of getting out of poverty

Hell, simply being in poverty causes so much stress and worry and feelings of failure that your brain actually functions worse. Yup, bootstraps are sure going to fix that. Know what will fix it though? giving poor people assistance to get them out of poverty so they can begin to help themselves.

I think the strongly empirical bits are where conservative arguments are at their weakest, yes. A lot of conservatives and libertarians sound to me a lot like the old natural philosophers who think they've rationally deduced physics without doing careful measurements There are some plausible intuitions there, and they've built some impressive structures on top of those and they often advocate for some reasonably compelling aesthetic and moral values, but in the end everything isn't actually made up of mixtures of the four elements.

But note that lots of conservatives are going to be happy to embrace the pessimistic conclusion that there's just nothing to be done for the poor. "The poor you will always have with you", after all. And modern conservatives love hard truths and hard choices.

 

[Boom Boom Pow]

Do conservatives have ANY evidence that more welfare makes people more dependable on things?

Sweden? No.
Finland? No.

"But they are white and not ghetto!"

Well what about Brazil?
Venezuela?

Both nations have had insane increases in social mobility since turning left wing. Venezuela you could say oil money used for mass increases in GDP, but you can't for Brazil.

dude, venezuela is a bad example to use.. their health system just collapsed

 

[Hitokage]

I think the strongly empirical bits are where conservative arguments are at their weakest, yes. A lot of conservatives and libertarians sound to me a lot like the old natural philosophers who think they've rationally deduced physics without doing careful measurements There are some plausible intuitions there, and they've built some impressive structures on top of those and they often advocate for some reasonably compelling aesthetic and moral values, but in the end everything isn't actually made up of mixtures of the four elements.

This is a great analogy, but it's not far from the truth in some cases. Austrian economics and Rand's Objectivism are both axiomatic and non-empirical. The latter actually makes itself incompatible with empiricism, among other silly things.

But note that lots of conservatives are going to be happy to embrace the pessimistic conclusion that there's just nothing to be done for the poor. "The poor you will always have with you", after all. And modern conservatives love hard truths and hard choices.

Only when other people have to make them.

 

[TacticalFox88]

Yet another conservative has taken issue with critical comments made by Pope Francis on capitalism and “trickle-down” economics.

Tea party activist Jonathon Moseley published a World Net Daily column Sunday that challenged the pope’s interpretation of the Bible, saying that Jesus had addressed his comments about helping the poor to individuals, not the government.

Moseley, a Virginia business and criminal defense attorney, supports his claim with a verse from the Book of Luke in which Jesus declines to act as arbitrator when someone asks him to compel a brother to divide their family inheritance.


“In just one verse, we see that God rejects the left-wing ‘Jesus Christ supported socialism’ heresy,” Moseley writes. “When Jesus was asked to support redistribution of wealth — to tell one brother to share the family inheritance with the other — Jesus refused.”

Moseley says Jesus would never support a government or church “stealing property by force” to give to someone else because he wouldn’t even intervene with the family dispute described in the Bible.

He dismisses claims by those who say the pope’s Spanish-language Apostolic Exhortation was mistranslated, because Pope Francis himself had not disputed the translations and corrected translations differ little from the original.

But Moseley says the pope is wrong to argue for government intervention in the distribution of wealth, and he defends the pope’s American conservative critics.

“One truth shines out from the Bible: Jesus spoke to the individual, never to government or government policy,” Moseley writes. “Jesus was a capitalist, preaching personal responsibility, not a socialist.”

Moseley mangles the definition of socialism to make it seem synonymous with totalitarianism and defines capitalism as synonymous with freedom, and proceeds with his arguments from there.


“Would Jesus endorse the violence needed for government intervention?” Moseley argues.

He says that capitalism necessarily benefits society because businesses rely on consumers to choose their products or services.

“The consumer is king,” Moseley argues. “Consumers won’t buy unless the purchase benefits them. To reinforce that central pillar of capitalism, laws against lying and fraud are proper and necessary.”

Moseley, who cohosts the “Conservative Commandos” radio show and serves as executive director of American Border Control, says the pope has got it all wrong on the free market.

“In teaching us how we should live, Jesus agrees that a man who traded with investment capital and earned profits is praised and rewarded by his master, a type for God, and given increased authority,” Moseley writes.

By contrast, he notes, Pope Francis specifically rejects the “invisible hand” of the free market as a “poison.”

He says the pope has directly contradicted Jesus’ strategy of changing individual hearts one at a time by calling on political leaders to help improve the lives of the poor and to address the issue of wealth inequality.

“Jesus Christ is weeping in heaven hearing Christians espouse a socialist philosophy that has created suffering and poverty around the world,” Moseley writes. “It is impossible to love one’s neighbor as yourself without fighting against socialism, meaning government meddling in private lives.”[

Ugh...EVEN WHEN ITS FUCKING SPELLED OUT THEY STILL DON'T GET IT

 

[Hitokage]

I guess their Bible doesn't include The Acts, which describes theocratic communism. One man is even struck dead by god for withholding property.

 

[Fuchsdh]

Yet another conservative political cartoon I can't understand. Are women who take birth control diseased sluts and whores? Does "many women" refer to the women he sleeps with? Isn't the law that all women get birth control coverage?

What I'm saying is it needs more labels.

I just like the hashtags that refer to pregnancy, and try to reconcile that with the fact that it's supposed to be about easy access to birth control, in which case the broken condom shouldn't even matter?

Ugh...EVEN WHEN ITS FUCKING SPELLED OUT THEY STILL DON'T GET IT

Well, I'll give him that Jesus doesn't say "in the future, when there is a large central government, they should also follow my teachings."

But I didn't think Jesus had to specifically call you out for you to have to follow God's laws.

 

[Fenderputty]

Ugh...EVEN WHEN ITS FUCKING SPELLED OUT THEY STILL DON'T GET IT

It was on this very board they I learned Jesus was a capitalist.

 

[GhaleonEB]

PD and I touched on this a few days ago, but I just saw this hit my Twitter feed so I wanted to bring it back up.

Despite general opposition to the ACA being over 50%, much of that opposition comes from the left, who do not want to also see it repealed.

Survey from a couple weeks ago shows support for full repeal at 38%. Support for waiting to see how it goes and for funding it better add up to 58%. Opposition is up from their last survey over the summer, but only among Republicans.

Even at what will probably be the low point for the law - this transition period - support for repeal didn't crack 40%. I think it gets better from here as the fiasco rollout fades and enrollments rise.

 

[The Technomancer]

I think the strongly empirical bits are where conservative arguments are at their weakest, yes. A lot of conservatives and libertarians sound to me a lot like the old natural philosophers who think they've rationally deduced physics without doing careful measurements There are some plausible intuitions there, and they've built some impressive structures on top of those and they often advocate for some reasonably compelling aesthetic and moral values, but in the end everything isn't actually made up of mixtures of the four elements.

But note that lots of conservatives are going to be happy to embrace the pessimistic conclusion that there's just nothing to be done for the poor. "The poor you will always have with you", after all. And modern conservatives love hard truths and hard choices.

Its that and I just feel like a lot of libertarians especially are not interested in regarding a society as a system at any level, just as a group of individuals. Now obviously you need to keep all things in mind but it feels like they just think if you work out how the laws affecting individual people should be then everything else good will emerge naturally.

 

[BSsBrolly]

29,000 people signed up this past Saturday and Sunday alone. Hopefully these numbers keep growing.

Per Politico.

Edit: actually it was Sunday and Monday..

 

[bonercop]

29,000 people signed up this past Saturday and Sunday alone. Hopefully these numbers keep growing.

Per Politico.

29,000 on the federal website alone, right? Those are great numbers.

 

[RustyNails]

29,000 on the federal website alone, right? Those are great numbers.

wut? arent those numbers low?

 

[PhoenixDark]

wut? arent those numbers low?

29k in two days, before the website update? That's not bad at all.

 

[NYCmetsfan]

wut? arent those numbers low?

That's more in two days than all of October. Thats 400,000 for the month if it continues, I'm hoping it will pick up. It be nice to have 1 million before New Years.

Supposedly your gonna see more people talking about signing up, events, ads, etc.

 

[Piecake]

But note that lots of conservatives are going to be happy to embrace the pessimistic conclusion that there's just nothing to be done for the poor. "The poor you will always have with you", after all. And modern conservatives love hard truths and hard choices.

Oh, I am not idealistic enough to believe that we will eradicate the lower class. Even if we get the lower class out of poverty, there will still always be a lower class.

What I have a problem with is that we have so many barriers to social mobility that it is extremely difficult and a good amount of luck to rise above your class. Personally, I would like to get closer to equal opportunity to fail and succeed (and if someone fails or isnt good enough, help him out, because he might succeed later), something that those conservatives claim to be advocates of, but their policies never seem to achieve.

Right now its just, lol you poor? Well, sucks to be you!

 

[cartoon_soldier]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/04/obamacare-signups-surge_n_4384984.html

29k Obamacare signups in 2 days. That's good, more than all of October.

 

[Metaphoreus]

I guess their Bible doesn't include The Acts, which describes theocratic communism. One man is even struck dead by god for withholding property.

Ananias and Sapphira were killed for lying, not for withholding property. Though the early Christians "shared everything they had" and did not claim "that any of their possessions was their own," (Acts 4:32), they did not do so through force, but voluntarily.

Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. 2 With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.

3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? 4 Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”

5 When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. 6 Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.

7 About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”

“Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”

9 Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”

10 At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.

I don't think Jesus had a whole lot to say about politics or economics. I agree that His teachings don't necessarily apply to government--He never specified either way--but to say He taught capitalism is anachronistic. His focus was on spiritual matters. And the kind of capitalism that treats greed as a virtue seems particularly ill-suited to Christ's teachings. "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal," He taught. "But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matt. 6:19-21).

 

[gkryhewy]

All this positive economic data is wreaking havoc on my mortgage rate lock plans for next week. Forgive me for pulling for a negative jobs surprise on Friday for once -- but I'm not counting on it.

 

[PhoenixDark]

Well he also said render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and claimed a rich man will have a hard time getting into heaven.

But hey, he had nothing to say to us Gentiles so we should discuss our apostle, Paul.

 

[Giant Panda]

Romney care sign-ups were very backloaded, so I'm not surprised to see sign-ups picking up pace. IIRC over half of Romney care sign-ups came right before the deadline. I'm sure having an actually functioning website helps too.

 

[NYCmetsfan]

Ananias and Sapphira were killed for lying, not for withholding property. Though the early Christians "shared everything they had" and did not claim "that any of their possessions was their own," (Acts 4:32), they did not do so through force, but voluntarily.



I don't think Jesus had a whole lot to say about politics or economics. I agree that His teachings don't necessarily apply to government--He never specified either way--but to say He taught capitalism is anachronistic. His focus was on spiritual matters. And the kind of capitalism that treats greed as a virtue seems particularly ill-suited to Christ's teachings. "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal," He taught. "But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matt. 6:19-21).

I love the apologetic for conservative philosophy coming into direct contradiction with their stated religious believes. The obtuse and highly technical arguments are a sight to behold.

"It was voluntary, the eye of the needle was a specific spot and wasn't blasting rich people, jesus didn't have anything to say on politics or economics, etc, etc."

The dude summed up his philosophy with a simple saying "do unto others as you would have done to you" and that doesn't line up with trickle down, austerity, and the general greed that underlines the GOPs philosophy

 

[Incognito]

Seems like a smart money manager to put your trust in!

Could ObamaCare actually force the man it’s named after to resign as president?

At least one Wall Street analyst says that while the chances are small, it's not out of the question that President Obama could step down before the 2014 mid-term elections if his approval ratings continue to implode amid the controversy over his health-care plan.

“If ObamaCare is the fiasco that some headlines are suggesting it is, I place the odds around 10% the president will resign before next November’s election,” said Kent Engelke, managing director at the brokerage Capitol Securities Management.

Engelke, who has more than 27 years of experience in the securities industry, says he got the 10% number from a simple calculation: 7% of all U.S. presidents faced impeachment or resignation (Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were impeached, while President Nixon resigned). He adds in another 3% due to the heightened animosity between president Obama and Republicans in congress.

:rollin

 

[Metaphoreus]

It was voluntary

Is this obtuse? Is it highly technical? Explain in what sense it is either of those things.

jesus didn't have anything to say on politics or economics

Again, obtuse? Highly technical? A survey of the red text in any old Bible would suffice to prove or disprove this straightforward claim.

Jesus taught many things during His life, and one of those was certainly that we should "do to others what [we] would have them do to [us]." (Though the greatest commandment, according to Jesus, was to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." Does this command apply to government? Must Christians be theocrats?) Does it violate that command to believe in a limited government? If one actually believes in "trickle-down economics," then wouldn't it be fulfilling the command to improve the lot of the wealthy? If a person wouldn't want more of his money taken by government through higher taxes, wouldn't he be fulfilling the command by refusing to increase taxes on others?

You're making the same mistake as the fellow whose column started the current discussion: reading your own beliefs into Christ's teachings, rather than reading Christ's teachings for what they are.

 

[User 250141]

While there are many parts of the Pope's comments that I was glad to see, I agree with this point:

Tea party activist Jonathon Moseley published a World Net Daily column Sunday that challenged the pope’s interpretation of the Bible, saying that Jesus had addressed his comments about helping the poor to individuals, not the government.

I think an important part of charity is getting involved at an individual level.

Being personally involved in our community and knowing the people who are struggling allows us to provide more social and moral support, which can be just as important (or even more important) than economic aid. And having to get in the trenches and help out ourselves--giving rides, helping out with bills, cooking meals--helps us better understand the challenges facing the needy. (It's certainly changed my views on a lot of things.)

And, on a personal level, I think that being involved in charity can make us more grateful for what we have.

Just having the government yank a certain % out of our paycheck separates us from the people we're trying to help and the effort needed to do so. I feel like some people want to spend as little time, and think as little possible about, helping the less fortunate, so they want to shift everything to government programs that are "someone else's problem." It's like outsourcing of charity. But it's not good for the giver or the receiver to try to reduce giving to a computer program.

I certainly don't categorically reject government assistance programs, and they can serve as an important role when private charity comes up short, but our ultimate goal should be that we help our fellow citizens ourselves. That's why it's great that Cyan is doing his OT giving thread and so forth.

 

[Hitokage]

Saying that they lied by withholding property instead of fraud by withholding property or simply withholding property is splitting hairs, if not avoiding the obvious. They didn't give their all, and they were punished for it. Does this mean that this applies to everyone? Perhaps not, but it does show that God doesn't abhor communes to the point of not enforcing them.

 

[Aaron Strife]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/04/obamacare-signups-surge_n_4384984.html

29k Obamacare signups in 2 days. That's good, more than all of October.

What an OBAMANATION

IMPEACH

 

[Metaphoreus]

Saying that they lied by withholding property instead of fraud by withholding property or simply withholding property is splitting hairs. They didn't give their all, and they were punished for it. Does this mean that this applies to everyone? Probably not, but it does show that God doesn't abhor communes to the point of not enforcing them.

It's not that they lied by withholding property. It's that they lied about withholding property. From Peter's comments, it's clear that they represented that the amount given was the full amount received from the sale, even though it wasn't--and that was their sin. Their sin was not merely withholding property (which Peter acknowledged they had every right to do); it was lying about having done so.

And that distinction isn't just splitting hairs, because the consequences are so dramatically different in each case. If the couple had sinned merely by withholding property (in other words, even if they had been honest about holding some money back, and that were still counted as a sin), then that would indicate that individual Christians have no right to their own property, but it belongs to the church. But if they had the right to keep back some (or all) of the property, as Peter acknowledged, and their sin was in lying, then the Christian does have a right to his or her own property, but also has a duty to be honest in dealing with the church.

 

[Gotchaye]

Again, obtuse? Highly technical? A survey of the red text in any old Bible would suffice to prove or disprove this straightforward claim.

Jesus taught many things during His life, and one of those was certainly that we should "do to others what [we] would have them do to [us]." (Though the greatest commandment, according to Jesus, was to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." Does this command apply to government? Must Christians be theocrats?) Does it violate that command to believe in a limited government? If one actually believes in "trickle-down economics," then wouldn't it be fulfilling the command to improve the lot of the wealthy? If a person wouldn't want more of his money taken by government through higher taxes, wouldn't he be fulfilling the command by refusing to increase taxes on others?

You're making the same mistake as the fellow whose column started the current discussion: reading your own beliefs into Christ's teachings, rather than reading Christ's teachings for what they are.

Christianity-according-to-Jesus and government is a really complicated thing, I think. It was originally a philosophy for people who couldn't be farther from the seat of power, after all. "Render unto Caesar" and all that is unlikely to apply to a government of Christians; the whole idea there was that Christians need to understand their relationship to a government that is not itself compatible with Christianity.

I do think, though, that Jesus would clearly not have responded well to arguments like trickle-down economics. You can certainly just say that Jesus wasn't a good economist, though this is an awkward position for a Christian to take, but he generally doesn't seem big on indirect action. One gets the feeling that he didn't have much patience for long arguments as to why the apparently self-serving thing is actually better for everyone. Jesus is pretty much all about self-sacrifice for the sake of others.

At the very least it's clear that Jesus would think that the rich are badly failing in their obligation to care for the poor. I think everyone agrees that Jesus would be 100% on board with the rich massively ramping up their charitable giving. So it seems hard to say that arguments about dependency are consistent with Christianity; that's not a reason for the rich not to spread the wealth voluntarily. To the extent that Christianity is consistent with lots of inequality, it's got to be because the rich are evil bastards but we need them. Taking from them involuntarily causes them to work less hard, because they don't care about the poor and so on. They're Caesars. They're all going to hell, sure, but we've got to live with them in the meantime.

But in a population which so overwhelmingly claims to be Christian, that becomes a really hard position to stick with in the long run. If we're so Christian, why can't we get to a place where we don't have to live under the yoke of the evil rich? Do we not have some reason to punish the evil rich if it is within our power to do so? Jesus himself was at his angriest, and even got violent, when confronted with people wrapping their profit-seeking in religious trappings.

 

[Hitokage]

It's not that they lied by withholding property. It's that they lied about withholding property. From Peter's comments, it's clear that they represented that the amount given was the full amount received from the sale, even though it wasn't--and that was their sin. Their sin was not merely withholding property (which Peter acknowledged they had every right to do); it was lying about having done so.

And that distinction isn't just splitting hairs, because the consequences are so dramatically different in each case. If the couple had sinned merely by withholding property (in other words, even if they had been honest about holding some money back, and that were still counted as a sin), then that would indicate that individual Christians have no right to their own property, but it belongs to the church. But if they had the right to keep back some (or all) of the property, as Peter acknowledged, and their sin was in lying, then the Christian does have a right to his or her own property, but also has a duty to be honest in dealing with the church.

I would then argue that your reading of the situation is not obvious from the quoted passage. Everything hinges on one remark made in passing, and not the description given otherwise.

But, again, either case fits my point.

 

[NYCmetsfan]

Is this obtuse? Is it highly technical? Explain in what sense it is either of those things.



Again, obtuse? Highly technical? A survey of the red text in any old Bible would suffice to prove or disprove this straightforward claim.

Jesus taught many things during His life, and one of those was certainly that we should "do to others what [we] would have them do to [us]." (Though the greatest commandment, according to Jesus, was to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." Does this command apply to government? Must Christians be theocrats?) Does it violate that command to believe in a limited government? If one actually believes in "trickle-down economics," then wouldn't it be fulfilling the command to improve the lot of the wealthy? If a person wouldn't want more of his money taken by government through higher taxes, wouldn't he be fulfilling the command by refusing to increase taxes on others?

You're making the same mistake as the fellow whose column started the current discussion: reading your own beliefs into Christ's teachings, rather than reading Christ's teachings for what they are.

No I'm not I'm not saying what Jesus overall philosophy (besides quoting his words), though I don't think that would approve of current conservative economic thinking (his vicar doesn't). And the quote about jesus not having anything to say about those issues was me disagreeing with it. I think he had a lot to say about it. Though not always in direct ways.

My main thrust was attacking the idea that when presented with a contradiction between the stated philosophy and political ideas they point out tiny flaws or other passages which they might be able to suss out their ideas even if the spirit of the passage can point in a different direction this is what is obtuse and frustrating. You see it all the time in religious debates. The idea that you have to "read it properly" or "you can't forget this passage" which usually means read it they way I want it read or read the selections I want read.