REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Jesus Appalled By Americans?

POSTED BY: MAVOURNEEN
UPDATED: Monday, April 9, 2007 13:32
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Thursday, March 22, 2007 10:03 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Nope Six, I haven't the faintest clue WHAT you're trying to say. Although I exaggerated to make a point, your posts contain fundamental self contradictions. This is what you've said about charity:

Americans are the most charitable because we donate a lot of money and pay a lot in taxes. So government-funded social programs are (forced) charities, which is the same as communism. But Europeans who pay more taxes are NOT charitable because they don't understand "private" charity, which is dirty and lazy.

So can you take this bag of snakes and lay it out straight? Or, describe for me what YOU think "charity" is.
---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.



Okay...... here goes nothing. These are the points I made. You got the words right, for the most part, but the punctuation seems a tad off is all.

1) Americans are the most charitable because we WILLINGLY donate a lot of money. (There is absolutely no denying this, and I won't even hear of it)
2) Americans pay a lot of taxes. (This is true as well, especially considering that the entire concept of income tax is unconstitutional in the first place. I don't need to reference the Constitution... you can look that up.)
3) Government-funded social programs are forced charities, which is the foundation of Communism. (Any form of wealth redistribution which is only enforced against and only impacts the lives of the middle class for "so called" betterment of the poverty stricken class is not only forced, but is the basis of Communism. This is how over several generations we become a society with only 2 classes... the poor and the elite. Remember this when your grandchildren are taking out 100 year mortgages on their houses like the Germans do now. Maybe they'll all just be renting houses from the Government by then.)
4) Europeans pay even more in taxes than Americans. (That's a fact. Nobody from Europe will argue it.)
5) Because of #4, they are closer to Communism than Americans are. (Though that margin is decreasing by the year.)
6) Europeans charity is derived primarily from the government funded programs, which are forced charities, which is akin to Communism. (What part of this train of thought aren't you getting yet, if any?)


I think the miscommunication is coming here though.

7) Europeans are less likely to give their take-home pay to charity because thier quasi Communistic governments take so much of it and already make all of those choices for their citizens. (This is true of anyone, no matter what nation. If you have less to give, you're going to give less. I, personally, do not know too many martyrs who willingly sacrafice their well-being and any hope of a future on a daily basis to better everyone aroune them. Americans will give less willingly when taxes increase drastically in 2008 because the Democrats are back in the throne.)

8) The only reason Americans give more to charity willingly is because they have more disposable income, having not given it all to their government to spend it for them. (Simply put, the inverse of #7.)


Other points which I made that are skewing your entire perceptions of what I said:

9) Giving to charity is dirty and lazy. (This is my own personal take on charity done by any organization, be it private or Government sponsored or both. I think giving to charity is something most people do only out of guilt. I shouldn't make blanket statements such as that, I suppose, but it is true. I prefer volunteer work or helping those around you that need it. When they show me starving kids on TV I change the channel. They're not going to get a penny out of me and they're not going to make me feel like a bad person because of it. How many people do you know that will donate a buck a day to Sally Struthers to feel good about themselves but then tell a bum they don't have any change? I know too many.)

10) We should look out for ourselves. What business is the Tsunami victims of ours? (Or anyone else in the world for that matter. I have some reservations about my tax dollars going to rebuilding after Katrina (mostly about the gross incompetence of the whole project), so you know that I'm seriously against a penny going to Tsunami victims a half world away. This is not stingyness or inhumanity.... it's frugality. Where do you suppose this money comes from. You are aware of our nearly 9 trillion debt to the "so-called" Federal Reserve, aren't you? We simply can't afford this. Before this country was teetering on bankruptcy, the state could have paid off Katrina rebuilding, but those days are long gone. This is all off our backs and this debt is our legacy we will leave our grandchildren. I'm sure you're against the war like I am too. This train of thought doesn't get to be applied when you pick and choose. We have plenty of people right here that are seriously in need. This article about what the UN has to say about us was simply another way for the other powers in the world to say what a shitty people we are here in America, and quite frankly I don't give a rat's ass about Jan's opinion.)



Points you may think I made, but I never said nor intended:

Not my point) Europeans who pay more taxes are NOT charitable because they don't understand "private" charity.

Shit... you can't even say that somebody that gives more than half of their income to the Government every week isn't charitable. If that's your definition of charity, just wait.... we're gonna catch up, wheather you like it or not.

Given replies from our unwitting Communist friend DRostie, I would say that the Europeans are VERY charitable for not only paying those insane taxes, but for giving up a large part of their own free will and self-government by letting the Government decide what issues get priority when it comes to getting anything done. There isn't an infinite amount of money and resources to go around and certain issues are always going to get prescedence while others get sidetracked, postponed, forgotten about or purposely swept under the rug. Maybe the things being done don't coincide with your values, but if they don't you have no say because the Government already has the money to make the choices without your input. Hey.... even more power to European citizens if they're all as happy as Stepford Wives while they sign their paychecks over.... I really don't beleive we're getting the normal, struggling everyday European man/woman's point of view here. DRostie sounds very much like a Hollywood actor here that has the freedom to talk about how charitable we should be right after they signed their last multi-million dollar contract. It's very easy to be charitable, and preach charitability, when you're well off.

The problem with the Government taking so much from its citizens is that it's a very slippery slope and you're giving them the power to determine your quality of life. A powerful government is a scary proposition and even our Forefathers knew that. They warned us about it time and time again. The less a Government takes interfears, the more choices a person can make on their own. Personally, I don't want to even live if it's a life where all of my decisions are already made for me. There's no fun and spontinaity. If I want to smoke and kill myself, good for me. When the government has all of the power they change the way the people think. I'm sure our European friend here learned most of what he's saying now at his public school when he grew up. Even his point of view from his dual citizenship is skewed towards the lessons he was taught about the world. We're not immune to it here either... hell he/she may have gotten a large part of that point of view while living here. Ever since the Government got control of all of the school programs in this country it has been dictating which books can and cannot be taught or even allowed in school. If the schools don't play ball, they don't get Federal funding and they're shut down by next year. It's okay to learn as long as we're learning in the narrow scope they're allowing for us. This has systematically closed thousands...no... millions of minds in this country and stifled creativity and individualism.

Sorry... that ain't living. And there's your answer Drostie..... I think living the way you do, and enjoying it at the same time isn't only a low-quality life.... It is death. You are the walking dead to me. A Stepford Person. A shell of a human being with no ability to think for yourself. I'm sorry if that's insulting, but quite frankly, I find your attitude about this to be repulsive and scary. Please do not try to give me a lesson of the merits of Communism. I find the idea of it to be very appealing on paper, but then human beings get to be part of it and it goes completley to shit. You can all be Communists over there someday if that's what you like, but if our own Government keeps pushing that way there will be a civil war.

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

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Thursday, March 22, 2007 10:19 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


"I expect that his decision to continue with his campaign in the face of his wife's cancer recurrence was made either out of out of naivete or out of a desire to affect the primaries. I don't think it's possible to truly understand how gruesome it is to care for someone with metastacized cancer unless you've gone through it, and my guess is that some time in the next two to four years he will be fully involved with his wife dying."

Maybe. The news articles said her cancer was 'incurable' and 'malignant'. Edwards said it would be like 'managing' a 'chronic disease' - like diabetes.

Several different possibilites come to mind - they know she's going to be dead soon but they're trying not to scare the kids (who look pretty young); they realistically do think it'll be managable; or they're in deep denial. Only time will tell.

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Thursday, March 22, 2007 10:25 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


6-string

Different people learn different myths about the way the world 'is' and so perceive and act differently.

Some of the most pernicious myths in the US are the myth it is a meritocracy (it isn't), the myth it's a frontier (it isn't) and the myth it's capitalistic (it isn't).

As to quality of life, I'm curious if you've ever lived in another developed country for a substantial length of time - a year or more. And if not, why do you automatically assume their quality of life is worse?

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Thursday, March 22, 2007 10:35 PM

KHYRON


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
1) Americans are the most charitable because we WILLINGLY donate a lot of money. (There is absolutely no denying this, and I won't even hear of it)
Brazilians, not Americans, are the most charitable because they WILLINGLY donate a lot of money. (There is absolutely no denying this, and I won't even hear of it).



Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
As to quality of life, I'm curious if you've ever lived in another developed country for a substantial length of time - a year or more. And if not, why do you automatically assume their quality of life is worse?
Why a year? An extended holiday should do the trick.


The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.

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Thursday, March 22, 2007 10:56 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


It seems a practical length of time. By then you'll probably have a chance to use the medical system, go through the seasons, have whatever little things about the new place you don't like wear on you for a bit.

And I've been told that anthropologists go out in the field for between one and two years. That's so they really learn the culture but keep their 'foreign' perspective.


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Thursday, March 22, 2007 11:05 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by Khyron:
Brazilians, not Americans, are the most charitable because they WILLINGLY donate a lot of money. (There is absolutely no denying this, and I won't even hear of it).


I thank Brazil every day for Adriana Lima.

EDIT: I'm so lonely.... jeez

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

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Thursday, March 22, 2007 11:13 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


It's probably your work hours.

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Thursday, March 22, 2007 11:28 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
It seems a practical length of time. By then you'll probably have a chance to use the medical system, go through the seasons, have whatever little things about the new place you don't like wear on you for a bit.

And I've been told that anthropologists go out in the field for between one and two years. That's so they really learn the culture but keep their 'foreign' perspective.


Perhaps you both are right. I certainly haven't spent any time at any of these other developed countries. I'm basing these opinions on a lot of assumptions and I'd be a liar if I didn't admit that.

I'll grant you that I may be wrong, but here's where I'm coming from:

1) I always hear about how great we have it here, how we're top dog, and how the rest of the world hates us. Usually that kind of hatered comes from envy, but I'll be the first to admit that I probably still have some brainwashing up there.... I'm trying to get better. It's hard. Most of us don't know shit about history and can't do much more math than your basic shit and if we're lucky, balancing a checkbook. They do a great job of filling our heads up with how to think though.

"When I look back on all the crap I learned in High School, it's a wonder I can think at all." Paul Simon ~ Kodachrome

2) My grandfather was able to raise 5 kids and buy a house for his family with a job managing a supermarket. How far is that money going to go today as a supermarket manager, given how much inflation rises above and beyond cost of living increases, and perpetually rising taxes? How far would it go if you had to give as much to the Government as the Europeans do?



Overspending by our government after illegally taxing us has put us all seriously in debt. I have enough to cover mine now. Do you have almost $30,000.00 on you if the piper ever comes to get paid on that 9 Trillion deficit? You can't honestly think that whoever we owe that debt is going to let us welch on it forever..... all the while adding exponentially more to it. I gotta laugh about it to keep from crying.

I'm seriously worried about many of us living in indentured servitude someday and when you're paying over 50% of your income to your government, I don't care how humanitaritan the cause, that seems like indentured servitude to me. Not to mention the bajillion cameras they have up everywhere watching the people in the UK (Primarily London) and the freaky ass "Big Brother-like" posters up everywhere with the eye of Osirus all over them watching you. It's freaking weird. I don't want our own government to have any extra money lying around to do that crap. They've already got way to many cameras downtown Chicago. I'm going there this weekend and that's all I'm going to think about while I'm there. It's impossible for me to enjoy myself at all Downtown anymore.

Granted, as I said before most people I know are idiots and buy tons of shit that they don't need, so for the most part this big freaking mess we're in is something we can collectively share the blame for. I used to be almost $7,000.00 when I was unemployed and I bought cigarettes on credit. In fact, I can't think of a sicker thing to do than to pay for your slow suicide with credit and then pay interest on it. I'm not above anybody in this regard other than I learned from my mistakes young and I have a higher positive balance with absolutely no debt than most people my age in this country. Put those acorns away in the summer time so you have a little to eat in the winter time.

In a perfect world where your Darwinism and Free Market (not sure if Free Market was every REALLY tested) could thrive on it's own, there would be no Bankruptcy at all. There would be no safety-net for stupidity and horrible judgement. Yet, here we are..... Everytime somebody successfully claims Bankruptcy, we borrow money from the FED to pay those debts and it's like somebody split stock you own (the American dollar) and they didn't give you the split. They gave it to the asshole who can't keep his debt under control. That's Communism, and one day, our credit will no longer be good with anybody and you'll know about waiting in line to buy government bread and we'll be so poor we're chopping down our internal walls for heat in the winter too.

Really.... if you took into consideration Bankruptcy in America as charity... I don't think the charity the entire world gives, government or otherwise would even come close to America's charity. Isn't Bankruptcy just a whole bunch of little self-inflicted-Katrina's happening all over the country everyday?

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

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Thursday, March 22, 2007 11:30 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
It's probably your work hours.


Awwww... thanks Rue.

I'm pretty sure you know it's my ability to drive people crazy, but you didn't say it.

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

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Friday, March 23, 2007 5:13 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


No it's Adriana Lima. I looked at her picture. Most guys would feel lonely too.

BTW- what ARE your work hours?

---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

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Friday, March 23, 2007 2:24 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
No it's Adriana Lima. I looked at her picture. Most guys would feel lonely too.

BTW- what ARE your work hours?

---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.


Yeah.... I was joking about Adriana, but.... I really wasn't joking about Adriana.

I work 3 to 4 days a week, 12 hour shifts from 6 at night to 6 in the morning. Pretty rough sometimes, especially on the 4 day weeks, but I love my weekends. That's why you see me around here all kinds of weird hours. I'm rarely on when I'm not working.


"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

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Friday, March 23, 2007 4:46 PM

ALLIETHORN7


Hate to cut in to your lil' conversation, 6ix, but there're a few things I gotta point out;
1) Charity is very much done out of a guilty copnciense (And, yes, I have seen a few of the bastards who won't give a dime to a homeless dude, and then give twelve bucks to some guy in a Santa costume on a street corner). Problem is, EVERYONE does charity of a fixed desire that the problem, whatever it happens to be, will go away if they throw enough money at it. I know that I'm but a young boy, and my opinion doesn't count for shit- I openly admit THAT aspect of life- but, Gorramit, Society at large (Not jusat the U.S.) has stagnated; we are too capitalistic. We lost the values of actually doing something; we assign the work to lower peons and sit on our collective asses and count pennys. Being frugal is actually more helpful than giving to any old charity- if you save money, than you help yourself and your family and freinds. Giving to charty's- while it once was a good thing, it now has lost its point. There are two dozen I could name off-hand (BEFORE you give me ten minutes to write some down!), and they simply will not get things done- if you want to help folks, volunteer yourself. Keep your money- most folks will gladly give it away to almost anyone so that problems just go out of sight- not gone, not away, just masked under a green cape. It really is sickening to me- Society has lost all sense of actually helping one another just cause they can, and not because it looks good.

2) (FINALLY!) People spend too much on nicities- cuz they are there to begin with. We've been conditioned to spend what we have left on whatever happens to catch our eyes- it's part of the reason why America is a Super-Power. I agree with you, though- America has lowered the bar, the rutters in D.C. Capital. Truth is, the Bueracracy has its' head shoved so far up its ass that the head is starting to come out of the throat once again- a rather awkward posistion to be in. In the words of Carlos Mencia, "Dee dee dee!"

3) The only thing I really got a problem with; taxes. Once it goes to the IRS, it's not your money any longer. It's Uncle Sams', for better or )Most likely) worst. So it ain't "Forced Charity", as you put it. What they do may not be right or just- but, we common folks don't get a say. Like you don't tell Bill Gates how to spend his odd 90 or so billion bucks, you can't technicaly tell the Gov't either (I say "Technicaly", cuz folks do it anyways). Also, we may be some odd 9 trillion in debt, but one must remember; as a country, we make 12 trillion a year. Even saving a fraction of that, we could be out of debt in a few years time. Maybe twenty or so, which isn't really all that much, when you look at it.

That's all, I think.
Having fun yet?

-Danny

I wanna take the Bullet,
The one aimed straight for your Heart;
I wanna meet the wolves halfway,
And let them Tear me APART,
But that's not the way they do it here...
THRICE RULES!!!!!!!!!

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Saturday, March 24, 2007 9:13 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Hi there Danny! It's always nice to have new and thoughtful crew members come on-board!

As a general response on the topic of charity, I have two thoughts that always pop up on the topic. One is a paraphrase of William Blake: Pity would be no more, If we did not make men poor and the other is the disquistion on heroes in Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage. In essence the play says that if you need heroes (or charity, in my intepretation) that's because someone f*cked up. A well-planned war needs no heroes, a well-planned society needs no pity.

If it were possible to have a decent-paying job for everyone who wanted and was capable of work, then our need for "charity" would be waaaay waaay down- limited to victims of natural disasters, accidents or disease. But in our capitalistic system where the scarcest resource of all is a decent-paying job, one wonders... or at I least do... that in a world where so many people need houses, clean water, education, and medical care, and where the earth could use reforestation, recycling, clean energy and general remediation why do we have so many poor people? There is certainly no lack of work to be done.

I leave that thought with y'all for further dicsussion, but right now I have to boogie from my work (yeah, workng Saturday AM) to home and hop on the OTHER treadmill!

---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

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Sunday, March 25, 2007 6:19 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


No bites?

Okay, I'm going to expand on that a bit.

/rant on
"Charity" is what we give people when they can't find decent-paying jobs. Various "charitable" government programs (Social Security, unemployment, welfare and mortgage relief) were effected during the Great Depression because at that point capitalism had fucked things up so badly* that large parts of the United States were bordering in insurrection and chaos. Look up "Hoovervilles" if you don't believe me.
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761564651/New_Deal.html

The decade of the 1930s saw the Great Depression in the United States and many other countries. During this decade large numbers of people lived in poverty, desperately in need of more food, clothing, and shelter. Yet the resources that could produce that food, clothing, and shelter were sitting idle, producing nothing. At the worst point of the Great Depression, in 1933, one in four Americans who wanted to work was unable to find a job. (Sounds like today worldwide.) "Charity" is what governments do to PROTECT CAPITALISM from it's inevitable self-generated catastrophic failure. All of you pro-corporate types who want to eliminate charity might want to remember that we've been there and done that more than once, and capitalism has had to have it's bacon pulled from the fire more than once by "charity".

I have no great love for "charity". Yes, it is a necessary response to catastrophe like tsunamis, volcanos, pandemics, and disabilities- but used on an ongoing basis as the "bread" part of "bread and circuses" it is a smarmy, self-gratifying meager substitute for justice.

I can think of several ways to eliminate "charity". The first is to look long and hard at laws that govern corporations, because corporations are "super people" - endowed with ALL OF THE RIGHTS (free speech, privacy) of individuals but NONE OF THE RESPONSIBLIES (paying taxes on an equal footing, doing anything beyond their "fiduciary duty" to their stockholders) and facing FEW OF THE SAME PUNISHMENTS (when a corporation faces the death penalty for killing people en masse, we'll be heading in the right direction.) I don't believe in playing in a gamed system, and we should neither be fighting over nor sharing the crumbs that fall from the table.

And the very first thing we need to do is raise the fucking minimum wage. That's not charity, that's justice.
/rant off

* data provided on request
---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

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Sunday, March 25, 2007 9:37 AM

CITIZEN


[[]CEO[]]
We can't raise the minimum wage, it'll effect our profits and we'll have to lay people off.

What's that, a million dollar bonus for sitting on my arse? Thank you very much.
[[]/CEO[]]


More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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Sunday, March 25, 2007 11:00 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


A million? Try a couple hundred million!

---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

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Sunday, March 25, 2007 11:30 AM

CITIZEN


Naw, that's only if they're not very good and are fired.


More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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Sunday, March 25, 2007 11:33 AM

SOUPCATCHER


Too sad and too true. Gerald Grinstein is the exception that proves the rule. How crappy a commentary is it that we find it exceedingly noteworthy when a CEO says that the workers deserve the bonus more than he does ( http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2007-03-20-delta-pay-usat_N.htm )? I haven't been paying attention to Delta's struggles with bankrupty but I seem to recall that management worked with the unions rather than taking a "fuck you" approach to labor.

And, re: charitable giving, the CBO estimated that repealing the estate tax would decrease charitable giving in the US by 6 to 12 percent ( http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5650&sequence=0 ).

* hat tip to Rachel Maddow for the Delta CEO story

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Sunday, March 25, 2007 1:16 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


"desperately in need of more food, clothing, and shelter"

If you all remember the famine going on a few years ago in Afghanistan, how shocking it was that people were so hungry they were eating grass ... the same was true in the US 'Great Depression'. But in the US the problem wasn't weather, it was completely economic. People were starving to death due to capitalism.

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Sunday, March 25, 2007 3:59 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
"Charity" is what we give people when they can't find decent-paying jobs.


Interesting take on charity. I always considered it what is given to people who, due to age, infirmity, accident, disaster, social situation, or whatever, can't hold a job, get a good education, get health care, pay for major emergencies, etc. I also consider charity to be something that individuals or non-governmental groups do. This sort of charity is done from a desire to help other people who are in need.

Quote:
"Charity" is what governments do to PROTECT CAPITALISM from it's inevitable self-generated catastrophic failure.

I take it that by "charity" in this case you mean (lowercase)social security - the money government spends on social programs such as unemployment, health care, pensions, etc. If this is true, would the countries with the highest (lowercase) social security costs be the nearest to catastrophic failure?

And the next question would have to be: If capitalism is bad and will inevitably fail, what alternative can we turn to? Is there a country we can use as a model for full and decent-paying employment?

BTW, I'll be offline 'til Wednesday, but I'm really curious about alternatives, so don't take my not posting for disinterest.


"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Sunday, March 25, 2007 5:31 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Fog has made every surface gleam with damp. A tuneless whistle and hard footsteps echo in the dark. The place is empty. Deserted ...

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Sunday, March 25, 2007 7:30 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


I make a distinction between charity and compassion. More later.

The footsteps pause briefly, then fade away in the distance. The street is quiet once again.

---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

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Sunday, March 25, 2007 7:47 PM

SOUPCATCHER


Fog has made every surface gleam with damp. A tuneless whistle and hard footsteps echo in the dark. The place is empty. Deserted ...

N

Fog has made every surface gleam with damp. A tuneless whistle and hard footsteps echo in the dark. The place is empty. Deserted ...

E

Fog has made every surface gleam with damp. A tuneless whistle and hard footsteps echo in the dark. The place is empty. Deserted ...

S

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.

Aw crap.

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Monday, March 26, 2007 2:07 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I make a distinction between charity and compassion. More later.


I always considered real charity to be a function of compassion. Government relief, social programs, etc. while possibly containing an element of compassion, are more politically driven.

Looks like we're having fun with semantics again. Darn. How about charity for compassionate aid and "Charity" for government aid?

Speaking of driven, I'm out the door and on the road. later.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Monday, March 26, 2007 5:39 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Not trying to play with semantics, just trying to get across a concept. "Charity"- like "tolerance" - has negative connotations. It is a word of separation and superiority, most recently derived from benevolence for the poor. Charity is what Gates or Soros or Buffett or the Waltons do after they rob everyone first. Compassion most recently derives from to suffer together, to see oneself in the other. It is a natural outflowing of sympathy i.e. community of feeling. Which reminds me of a story:


--------------------------

Three women come across a river full of drowning babies floating rapidly downstream. One immediately jumps in the river, and grabs babies as fast as possible, tossing them on the riverbank and calling out for help. The second hesitates, then turns away.

"Where are you going?" screams the first.

"I'm going for help!" answers the second.

The woman in the river turns to the third, who starts to run away as fast as possible.

"WAIT! HELP! Where are YOU going??!?!"

"I'm going to find the sonofabitch who's throwing them IN the river!"

---------------------------------
Pity would be no more if we did not make men poor.

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Monday, March 26, 2007 6:47 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Fog has made every surface gleam with damp. A tuneless whistle and hard footsteps echo in the dark. The place is empty. Deserted ...

(W) You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.

The smell of damp grass rises from the field and a train's call rises and falls away in the distance. Footsteps approach the mailbox and

---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

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Monday, March 26, 2007 12:18 PM

SOUPCATCHER


The smell of damp grass rises from the field and a train's call rises and falls away in the distance. Footsteps approach the mailbox and

Uh oh. Is it dark? Is that a grue? And how come my bag is empty right after that shifty guy came through the field? (I guess now I've completely outed myself as a nerdling )

-----------------------------------------------

This isn't directly related to what you're talking about, SignyM, but I wanted to add a piece on charitable giving. I do believe that tithing is considered giving to charity. It's tax deductable (or at least it was years ago when I was tithing). I personally don't consider donating a portion of your income to your church to be the same as donating money to the American Red Cross. So, at least from my perspective, stats on charitable giving are artificially inflated by tithing. How widespread is tithing? Who knows. At my church it was suggested that we do everything in our power to tithe the biblically recommended ten percent (and there were arguments back and forth on whether that was calculated pre or post tax - with God and the angels on the side of pre-tax, naturally ). This money was used to pay the pastor, keep the church running, etc. (* edited to remove the part about property taxes since I'm not sure if churches are required to pay taxes)

Anecdotally, when I was a pre-teen we would sneak out of Sabbath School and explore the church. There was a room underneath the steeple where boxes and boxes of old financial records were kept. We usually used it as an access to the roof (you could remove a vent cover to get outside) but sometimes when it was raining we would go through the contents of the boxes. The short summary is there was a lot of money coming in through tithes, much more than from offerings.

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Wednesday, March 28, 2007 8:09 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Not trying to play with semantics, just trying to get across a concept. "Charity"- like "tolerance" - has negative connotations. It is a word of separation and superiority, most recently derived from benevolence for the poor. Charity is what Gates or Soros or Buffett or the Waltons do after they rob everyone first. Compassion most recently derives from to suffer together, to see oneself in the other. It is a natural outflowing of sympathy i.e. community of feeling.


OK. I was brought up to consider charity the action of expressing compassion by aiding someone in trouble - recognizing that we're all in the same boat, more or less.

So for purposes of this discussion, charity is something other than compassionate giving, eh?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Wednesday, March 28, 2007 8:54 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


IMHO "charity" smacks of Victorian almshouses.

But let's get past wordsmithing. Let me tell another story:

The Christmas Bonus

Up in the northern wilds, a prospector and his faithful dog found themselves pinned down by a major blizzard without any supplies. The prospector knew it would let up in a week, but that wouldn't be soon enough because they would starve to death by then. Several days passed while he and his faithful dog huddled by a small fire in the forest. Each day as he got hungrier and hungrier, the prospector eyed his dog a little longer. And finally, late on Christmas eve, he couldn't stand it any longer; he jumped the dog and quick as flash cut off its tail. After roasting and eating the tail, and feeling some guilt and pity for his whimpering companion who stood shivering just outside of the firelight, he looked at the bones in his hand and held them out.
"Here dog" he called softly.

---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

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Wednesday, March 28, 2007 9:13 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


When we see historical pictures of the wealthy and powerful handing out a few coins- like Louis XVI Displays Charity in 1788 (LeFevre)-it's easier to recognize the irony of the situation: the King, whose palaces and expenses helped to ruin the country, "sharing" a few meager coins with a rare few lucky ones. It's harder to recognize the same irony in modern circumstances. oops- later

---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

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Wednesday, March 28, 2007 9:35 AM

KHYRON


Okay... so in feudal societies, every now and again kings gave money to the poor. Yep, that proves it, charity is evil.

Hate to say it, SignyM, but you seem to be doing what Geezer is always accused of doing by some members of the board, which is being slick, i.e. shifting the goal posts. Maybe we should just accept the definition of charity that Geezer gave, which is the commonly accepted one, and restart the discussion from there.


"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."

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Wednesday, March 28, 2007 9:48 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


No I'm not. My point is different than what we call "giving to the poor". Can you figure out what it is?

---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

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Wednesday, March 28, 2007 10:14 AM

KHYRON


Your point seems to be that if rich people give to the poor it shows the hypocrisy of charity, since the rich exploited the poor in some way in the first place. I get this impression from your dog analogy, the king example and the following:
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Charity is what Gates or Soros or Buffett or the Waltons do after they rob everyone first.
If this isn't your point, maybe you should re-think your wording.

In the meantime, explain to me how Gates and co. robbed everyone. You mean there'd be less poverty would it not be for commercially successful people such as Gates?

After that, tell me what you call a middle class citizen giving money to a homeless person. Surely the middle class person didn't rob the homeless person in order to do so? What do you call Western societies giving money to NGOs to help bring food to Africa, or rebuild tsunami-hit countries? Your criticism of the word 'charity' seems to be very one-sided.


"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."

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Wednesday, March 28, 2007 1:55 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
When we see historical pictures of the wealthy and powerful handing out a few coins- like Louis XVI Displays Charity in 1788 (LeFevre)-it's easier to recognize the irony of the situation: the King, whose palaces and expenses helped to ruin the country, "sharing" a few meager coins with a rare few lucky ones. It's harder to recognize the same irony in modern circumstances.


I see. You're talking about what I always understood to be "largesse", defined by my Webster's New Riverside as liberality in giving, esp. when attended by condescension

So how do you define giving attendant to a feeling or compassion or benevolence, as opposed to condescension?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Wednesday, March 28, 2007 2:21 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


In the meantime, explain to me how Gates and co. robbed everyone. You mean there'd be less poverty would it not be for commercially successful people such as Gates? Yep, that's exactly what I mean. It may be easier to see how the Waltons screwed people by paying their staff shit and shifting production to China. But let's take a look at Bill Gates.

The Microsoft empire grew for several reasons, but NOT because they offered better software than their competitors but because they engaged in "uncompetitive practices": they told PC makers that they would cut their balls off if the PC makers ever loaded anything but Windows, they bought up competitive companies and killed them, and created onerous end-user-license-agreements (EULAs) backed by Clinton's DMCA. MS has pushed hard to make deals with governments, agencies, and universities by wining and dining key people. As a result, individuals pay hundreds of dollars for crappy software when they could get better software for free, and government agencies and universities pay on the order of tens of thousands of dollars that they would not need to expend. Because MS software is so bloated the purchasers wind up needing relatively expensive computers, because it's so inefficient it needs to be routinely "rebooted" because it can't clean up it's own memory. (Remember the failure of air traffic control outside of LA? Due to un-rebooted PC.) And finally, the software is so insecure that users need special "anti-viru$" software, when that software fails (as it routinely does) credit card companies, banks, consumers, agencies, and businesses have to go through the hassle of cancelling old cards and issuing new ones, wiping and reloading software etc. I personally have had my card cancelled twice because a third-party credit-card processor's MS database was touched by outside parties. And that's not even getting into network management and the future of Digital Rights Management (DRM).

By forming a monopoly by illegal means, everyone pays for the inefficiencies and cost of using using MS. It constitutes a theft of taxpayer dollars, if nothing else. Bill Gates didn't "produce" anything. What he did was shift the costs to others, and the benefits to himself.

---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

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Wednesday, March 28, 2007 3:14 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
By forming a monopoly by illegal means, everyone pays for the inefficiencies and cost of using using MS. It constitutes a theft of taxpayer dollars, if nothing else. Bill Gates didn't "produce" anything. What he did was shift the costs to others, and the benefits to himself.


Taking all this as a given for the sake of your argument, is it not possible that Mr. Gates, or the Waltons, or Mr. Buffet, or Mr. Soros actually provide the money they give to improve the lives of others from a sense of compassion, and not of...guilt? After all, what you consider fair business practices in the U.S. aren't tied to reducing HIV/AIDS in Africa, whereas billions in donations may have an effect.


"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Wednesday, March 28, 2007 3:14 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Damn. Double post again.

Andrew Carnegie was another Capitalist SignyM would probably hate. Lot's of folks wouldn't have had much exposure to history, literature, philosophy, art, etc. without the libraries he endowed all over the country. So is that a plus or a minus?

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Wednesday, March 28, 2007 4:53 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
....in our capitalistic system where the scarcest resource of all is a decent-paying job, one wonders... or at I least do... that in a world where so many people need houses, clean water, education, and medical care, and where the earth could use reforestation, recycling, clean energy and general remediation why do we have so many poor people? There is certainly no lack of work to be done.


Sorry I wasn't there to bite Signy.... finally got my well diserved 4 day weekend. I'm just starting to read what I missed while I was gone, but just had to post to say that this is probably one of the best questions I've ever read. Communism scares me, but Capitalism has shown itself to have plenty of faults itself. Perhaps either one would be just fine if you took humans out of the equation altogether....

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

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Wednesday, March 28, 2007 6:06 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Great post by you too Danny. That just about sums up my thoughts about sending money to an organization to ease your conscience.


Just want to say that Government has absolutely no place spending our money on social programs. I know how deeply ingrained the concept of the Government taking care of its citizens is in most of our heads, but that's not the way it was supposed to be. We need smaller, decentralized government and we need to be free to run our own lives and give and direct our own resources to causes we feel strongly about. Any statistics regarding what money governments gave as aid is all trivial bullshit to me. Any government giving money to other nations is just "borrowing" that money from the "Federal" Reserve with no intention of ever paying it back, while at the same time, increasing the debt burden of each and every citizen in its jurisdiction.

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

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Wednesday, March 28, 2007 6:46 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


After all, what you consider fair business practices in the U.S. aren't tied to reducing HIV/AIDS in Africa, whereas billions in donations may have an effect. What? Repeat please? Lot's of folks wouldn't have had much exposure to history, literature, philosophy, art, etc. without the libraries he endowed all over the country. So is that a plus or a minus? Lots of folks wouldn't have been working in poverty conditions w/o the time or energy to access libraries if it hand't been for the robber barons. A minus in that respect.
---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

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Thursday, March 29, 2007 3:11 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
After all, what you consider fair business practices in the U.S. aren't tied to reducing HIV/AIDS in Africa, whereas billions in donations may have an effect. What? Repeat please?


In words of one syllable, then.

Though Bill Gates may have made his dough in what you think is a bad way, he might still give it to fight HIV/AIDS not from guilt, but just to help folk. Would a bunch of small guys give as much as one big one? I don't think so.



"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Thursday, March 29, 2007 5:08 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


If people were not so desperately poor, would anyone need to "fight HIV/AIDS" in such a big way?

And what about malaria? Clean water?

The problem with "big donors" is that they get to pick the issues and how to tackle them. If they were to go back to the root causes of poverty- and not just poverty's effects- they might find themselves staring back at them.

---------------------------------
Pity would be no more if we did not make men poor.

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Thursday, March 29, 2007 6:44 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


AFA the "middle class"- the "middle class" - in fact most people- have NO idea how very rich the very rich are. The "middle class" may like to think that they're in control, and hence share some of the responsibility for what goes on. After all, nobody likes to feel powerless, and it's part of our national mythology that we're all the same and we all have equal options. But the middle class is not the group that decides to shift production from the USA to China to India to Vietnam, it is not the group that traps nations into onerous loans, or controls the media. The only power that the middle class has is to select from a group of candidates which has to some extent beeen pre-selected by money. So I think the middle class should get over itself and stop feeling guilty.

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

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Thursday, March 29, 2007 9:42 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
If people were not so desperately poor, would anyone need to "fight HIV/AIDS" in such a big way?

And what about malaria? Clean water?


...and continuing your little guessing game, I suppose that we are to assume, based on the rant in your prior post, that doing away with capitalism would somehow make people worldwide not poor. How would this occur, pray tell?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Thursday, March 29, 2007 11:01 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


More would have to occur than "doing away with capitalism". I suppose you want me to come up with an entire social/ economic structure to answer all of the world's problems?

HA!

Who do you think I am?

I suppose in one way I appreciate the backhanded respect (thanks Geezer ) but so far even the best thinkers have not yet figured out THAT problem! I do have some ideas, but I have to get back on my treadmill for the rest of today.

Later, dude.

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

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Thursday, March 29, 2007 11:16 AM

KHYRON


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
More would have to occur than "doing away with capitalism".
Oh so then it's NOT capitalism that's the root of poverty... then what was that ranting against commercially successful people about?

I'm getting really confused by all the goalpost-shifting in this thread.

Dizzy Khyronisall


"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."

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Thursday, March 29, 2007 12:08 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


There are several repeating themes in our history as a species, and one of them is the development of the wealthy and powerful at the expense of others. Capitalism is not the only economic system which has created poverty, and it is not the only economic system to justify itself on the basis of greater themes. Emperors, pharaohs, kings, high priests, and robber barons have all at one time or another justified their inordinate positions on the basis of representing the gods, keeping the natural order from collapsing, improving the human race, or leading to a brighter and better future for all. Capitalism just happens to be the one we're dealing with today.

I'm surprised I have to explain that.

There is a "however" to that part of human tendency. Several cultures which were quite advanced for their day apparently did not develop in that direction, including the cities around and including Mohenjo-Daro and the Minoan culture. (One might ask- if they were so good why didn't they survive? The answer is that they were apparently overtakne by natural disaster and/or ecological change.)



---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

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Thursday, March 29, 2007 12:58 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


I'm getting really confused by all the goalpost-shifting in this thread.
Dizzy Khyronisall

Heh. Maybe if you sought a wider perspective then little shifts wouldn't bother you so much. It's like trying to read in a car and then looking out the window. Take a deep breath and look at the horizon.


---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

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Thursday, March 29, 2007 1:55 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Speaking of crappy software, I just wanted to pound this nail into Bill Gates' feet of clay and mix a few metaphors while I'm at it.

In 2005...

The personal information of over 40 million people has been hacked... "data from roughly 200,000 accounts from MasterCard, Visa and other card issuers are known to have been stolen in the breach," although 40 million were vulnerable... Microsoft software may be to blame.

www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/06/cardsystems_exp.html


---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

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Thursday, March 29, 2007 2:15 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


There is no middle class. There is only the elite and many degrees of poverty and living on the edge.

According to my annual salary, I'm not too far above the poverty line, but I save every spare penny. (A skill I only acquired after I lost my job and everything I had) The truth is, because of this ability to save, I have more money banked than many so called "middle class" people who are drowing in debt because of the nice cars and their McMansions and all of the crap they spend on their kids. This is not wealth. This is worse than a poor family who cannot get credit that is struggling to survive from paycheck to paycheck.

Couple this with the fact that we'll give free healthcare to illegals and anyone who is paying little or nothing into the system, wheras if you're "middle class", you're expected to foot this bill yourself. During a 4 year nearly jobless stint, working mostly under the table when I could even find work, I thought I had testicular cancer at one point. Of course, being unemployed, I had been without health insurance for years. I waited a full month before seeing a doctor because I was already over $5,000.00 in debt with no way that I could even pay that off, given my current situation. When I couldn't handle thinking about the fact that this could kill me if I didn't get it checked out, I went to the doctor who sent me to the hospital to get labwork. In the end, it turned out only to be a cyst... A cyst that cost me nearly $1,000.00 that I didn't have to get checked out. I can't even imagine how I'd be paying this off still if I had to have an operation. The collections agency wasn't buying my financial situation, however, when they told me that their computer said I had access to over $35,000.00 in credit.

Yeah... did I mention that they give WAY too much credit to poor people too?

No guilt here. If you're feeling guilty about anything and/or you just feel in your heart that you need to help people, go and volunteer in your community. We've got a Federal Reserve who just prints up more money all the time. Ultimately, they are the decision makers when it comes to who gets aid and how much they get. Bill Gates couldn't even imagine the power they have.

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

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