View Full Version : The Cost of Speaking about Poverty...
Devastatin Dave
05-23-2007, 19:35
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,274513,00.html
Well, so is it worth $55,000 for some rich guy to talk about poverty? Anyone see a bit of hypocrisy in this. This reminds me of the multitude of celebrities including Al Gore when they burn thousands of gallons of fossil fuels and burn up ozone to tell we, the drooling masses, that we're all going to die because we pollute too much. Your opinions please...
I honestly laughed at first, I mean who would have thought a deomcrat would be taking money to speak on poverty :laugh4:
Don Corleone
05-23-2007, 20:26
It's reasons like this why I can't take the mainstream Democrats seriously. Speak to your average Edwards supporter. Ask them why they back him. Their answer? Because he has integrity, and he walks the walk....
Hello? Are we in the same plane of existance? My pick right now is Mitt Romney and I'll be the first one to list his flaws: he's a bit too opportunistic in terms of changing his positions on morally principled stances; he's a bit more in favor of corporate subsidies than I'd like to see; and he originally seemed to have a hard time explaining the role that his faith plays in his public life (he has since gone on to explain himself better, but I have no problem explaining to people what I do and don't believe and why I choose to follow Rome, follow Washington D.C or follow my own instincts and tell the first two to pack it).
That sort of naivete', a populist getting a $200 haircut and receiving $55k to speak about the plight of the 'other America'.... Give me a freaking break. Tell the truth... you want to vote for Edwards because he promises to 'stick it to the rich', which by the way, he won't. He'll take money from one portion of the middle class to give to another, that's how all politicians enact spending programs, regardless of what they claim in front of the microphones. The rich and the poor don't pay taxes.
HoreTore
05-23-2007, 20:59
Democrats belong on the right, and the right have never cared about the poor... That's the leftist area...
Don Corleone
05-23-2007, 21:04
From your mouth, to the American voter's ears...
There you have it, folks, directly from one of our resident Socialists. If you're poor, or care about the poor, don't vote for either guy. In fact, just stay home all together. :laugh4:
HoreTore
05-23-2007, 21:07
Haha!
Well, if you look closely, I'm sure you find some red parties in the US... At least some social democrats... But thinking that the democrats will do anything for anyone else than the rich, that's fooling yourself...
ShadeHonestus
05-23-2007, 21:11
I personally would like to view a transcript of his speech. On face value its laughable, but I'd first like to know what he had to say before I bash him for getting paid to say it.
Hosakawa Tito
05-23-2007, 23:25
That's not money, that's free speech...
ShadeHonestus
05-23-2007, 23:32
zing....
Crazed Rabbit
05-24-2007, 05:33
a populist getting a $200 haircut
*cough * $400 *cough*.
the right have never cared about the poor... That's the leftist area...
I care about the poor. Unlike leftists, I actually want to make it possible for them to get wealthier, instead of just making them dependent on gov't handouts.
A rising tide, and all that.
CR
The rich and the poor don't pay taxes.The rich pay the most taxes. The wealthiest 5% pay for more than 50% of all income taxes collected.
CountArach
05-24-2007, 08:12
I care about the poor. Unlike leftists, I actually want to make it possible for them to get wealthier, instead of just making them dependent on gov't handouts.
My God, I tire of this argument.
The idea of being conservative is to conserve the status quo. How is it conserving the status quo if there is mobility between the classes? Doing anything else is to be progressive. Not generally something assosciated with the right.
My God, I tire of this argument.
The idea of being conservative is to conserve the status quo. How is it conserving the status quo if there is mobility between the classes? Doing anything else is to be progressive. Not generally something assosciated with the right.
Slap whatever labels you want on it. It still doesn't change the argument.
doc_bean
05-24-2007, 11:32
It's not like he's forcing people to pay him to speak.
The man has to make money to campaign somehow, it's either this or sucking up to corporations, perhaps this is the better method, since it leaves him with more independence later on.
My God, I tire of this argument.
The idea of being conservative is to conserve the status quo. How is it conserving the status quo if there is mobility between the classes? Doing anything else is to be progressive. Not generally something assosciated with the right.
The idea of being conservative is not to conserve the status quo. That is often what happens with both liberial and conservative governments but that is not the idea behind either.
Sjakihata
05-24-2007, 11:38
Funny how the republicans are now ridiculing the market economy. Person has a commodity which he values to be worth 55.000 dollars. Person B agrees with the price and purchases said commodity.
What is so wrong with that, if you're a republican?
Sjakihata
05-24-2007, 11:41
The idea of being conservative is not to conserve the status quo. That is often what happens with both liberial and conservative governments but that is not the idea behind either.
The idea of conservatism is to 'reform in order to conserve'.
The idea of conservatism is to 'reform in order to conserve'.
Depends on where you are at. For instance my conservative stance is based upn this philisophy of government. Available through about any search engine.
"Fiscal conservatism
Fiscal conservatism is the economic philosophy of prudence in government spending and debt. Edmund Burke, in his 'Reflections on the Revolution in France', articulated its principles:
...[I]t is to the property of the citizen, and not to the demands of the creditor of the state, that the first and original faith of civil society is pledged. The claim of the citizen is prior in time, paramount in title, superior in equity. The fortunes of individuals, whether possessed by acquisition or by descent or in virtue of a participation in the goods of some community, were no part of the creditor's security, expressed or implied...[T]he public, whether represented by a monarch or by a senate, can pledge nothing but the public estate; and it can have no public estate except in what it derives from a just and proportioned imposition upon the citizens at large.
In other words, a government does not have the right to run up large debts and then throw the burden on the taxpayer; the taxpayers' right not to be taxed oppressively takes precedence even over paying back debts a government may have imprudently undertaken."
Republicans haven't been fiscal conservatives in ages, Red. Frankly, I'd appreciate it if Republicans and Democrats just stopped using the words "conservative" and "liberal" before they lose all meaning.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
ShadeHonestus
05-24-2007, 14:49
Republicans haven't been fiscal conservatives in ages, Red. Frankly, I'd appreciate it if Republicans and Democrats just stopped using the words "conservative" and "liberal" before they lose all meaning.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
I believe Red's posting was in regards to his "personal conservative stance." Its true that republicans fall all along the spectrum of fiscal ideology and exercise, just as do democrats. But to state that republicans as a whole haven't been fiscally conservative is disingenuous.
If you want to throw out an actual random party factoid we can state that Democrats play upon a myth of class warfare, promising people that they'll tax and in essence punish wealth. Unfortunately you can't really tax wealth aside from income taken (ala capital gains) you can only tax the accumulation of wealth and that is something which hurts the poor man much more than the rich man.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
But to state that republicans as a whole haven't been fiscally conservative is disingenuous.
O RLY? (http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-087es.html)
O RLY 2: When Nature Calls (http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_bartlett/bartlett200509280837.asp).
Night of the Living O RLY. (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/08/04/the_republican_pork_barrel/)
Mighty Morphin' Power O RLY. (http://www.lewrockwell.com/giles/giles14.html)
The results are astonishing, Republican Administrations have accrued, more than 3 fold, the debt that Democrats have. This demonstrates that the self-applied rubric of "fiscal conservative" is not true for Republican Administration’s unless we invert the accepted meaning of these words.
What about inflation? Will the varying value of the dollar (downward sadly) skew these results unfavorably? Since I am using Fed data, I will use another government statistic to gauge inflation, the consumer price index (CPI). The basis year is 1967 as 100, which is close enough, for my argument to 1966. The data I used found 1966 at 97, and 1998 at 475. I will be generous and blame Bill Clinton for another 125 points to be tacked onto the Bush years since 2001 to total 600 (a nice Rovian touch). Thus the initial Democratic debt in 1966, in 2006 dollars is 1.8 trillion which when added to the unadjusted since 1966 dollars totals 3.6 trillion. This is still a long way short of the Republican debt of 6.4 trillion dollars of just six Republican Administrations (Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I, Bush II).
These results demonstrate the mendacious nature of the assertion of Republican Fiscal Conservatism. What does this bode for the republic? I cannot tell since I am not clairvoyant; however, in the known history of the world a debt this large has never been paid off.
ShadeHonestus
05-24-2007, 15:37
O RLY (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/18/us/18repubs.html?ex=1305604800&en=fcf9e38b4b2cbf5c&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)
you should be proud, this is the times.
Shawshank O RLY (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/05/america/web-0405dems.php)
Fiscally conservative republicans and we do exist in great numbers have been upset with the fiscally irresponsible nature of the party leadership. I believe your articles only prove that point.
vBulletin® v3.7.1, Copyright ©2000-2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.