[Hawk]

Many Atheists like yourselves seem to dismiss God because of bad experiences with people who claim to be religious, but don't even live up to there own standards. Your examples are many in this thread. You guys have repeatedly brought up the failures of said people to use as a reason to dismiss God. One has nothing to do with the other.

Please don't judge God by weak men who "say" they represent God. The examples you give of bad experiences in church are with people, not God. There are hypocrites everywhere . Yet unfortunately it is these people you seem use to judge the extistance God.

Religion is made up OF MEN who sometimes get it wrong. If you remember, Christ hung out with the humble lowlife because they got it. It was the self proclaimed righteous that didn't get it. Still the same way today.

And please understand that believers feel that they are helping you when they suggest that you believe too. It's their tactics that may suck.

lonewolf. Do you really believe you would be better off with a pre FDR sized government ? Do you think you would have more money in your pocket ? Or why is it that you repeatedly express a hatred for government ?

Capitalism is based on setting prices by "whatever the market will bare" (unless you are a monopoly where you can then go above whatever the market will bare). If you would pay less taxes and have more money to spend, all prices would be higher than they are now, and you would likely have the same amount of money in your pocket and LESS government protection.

I don't understand how paying less taxes will stimulate the economy . The government doesn't just hoard the tax money.......They spend it, or give it to states, counties and cities and people TO SPEND. When the government spends it, it is going INTO the economy. How is that bad ? Other than you don't like how they spend it.

And remember, no matter how much you complain, it will never go back, so why DO you bother to complain about it ?
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[VENTGtr]

[songsmith]

[lonewolf]

[VENTGtr]

SS,

Nicely said.
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DaveP.

"You must be this beautiful to ride the Quagmire."

[lonewolf]

[lonewolf]

[songsmith]

Good points, LW, but the "free" market is far from perfect. You've forgotten the power of greed.
In the rarified air of Reaganomics, it was thought that if more money was distributed to Big Business (back when small business could begin to compete), that money would trickle-down, resulting in the more-even distribution of wealth(power) to everyone... if everyone made more money, they'd pay more taxes overall, and gov't and citizenry would both benefit. Basically, tax breaks for Big Business equals a better world.
Now insert reality.
Big Business loved the tax breaks. Overall pay and benefits increased somewhat, but for those in the upper strata of management, pay skyrocketed. Where it was once common for CEO's to make 20 times the average pay at their companies, suddenly 200 times the average pay wasn't even noticed. Please note the rich getting richer, and not because they're doing a great job. The janitor works hard, too, and his pay didn't increase all that much.
Around this time, we heard the famous words, "Read my lips, no new taxes." Shortly after that, the internet boom happened, and regular Americans started getting some returns on their meager investment money. Welfare rolls were at historic lows, unemployment shrunk, and the little-people actually made some scratch because employers had to compete for THEM for once.
Now a bit more reality.
The "free market" noticed that people in Mexico would work half-price. China would undercut the Mexicans. India would go even cheaper than that. Why on Earth would anyone want to pay Americans so much money for a living, when you could f*ck them over, and give them new lower-paying retail jobs? The Information Age gave way to the Walmart Economy, the 401k's took a thumping, Enron and others cooked books, and the little guy took the bone again. The "free market" sold us out, and there's no way to explain it other than that.
The benefit of government spending over market spending is that I can vote out the a-holes who spend my money (remember that quote in Nov.'08). In the corporate world, I have zero control, which is exactly how the rich want it to be. Do I think ALL money should go to government? Of course not. Contrary to popular conservative thought, all non-Republicans are not socialists. There has to be balance, also contrary to popular conservative thought. ---->JMS

[lonewolf]

That's a little OT John, but ask yourself:

Who benefits the most from money spent on government contracts?

I'll give you a hint. While working at my cushy defense job in the 80s, when we had a surplus of research money for a given quarter, we had to use it or lose it. I'll never forget those huge keg & filet mignon parties we had. I can only imagine what the brass were doing with most of the "surplus" money.

I'll give you another hint. Unless they are very lucky and land a cushy job with a big government contractor (you know, those nasty corporations), its not the people who were displaced by foreign labor.
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...Oh, the freedom of the day that yielded to no rule or time...

[Hawk]

[lonewolf]

[songsmith]

You're right, lonewolf, I went way off topic with the anti-corporate rant. You have to admit, it's an important discussion, though... maybe we'll continue it elsewhere.---->JMS

[Hawk]

[Hawk]

[lonewolf]

[Hawk]

[songsmith]

[lonewolf]

John, you are rambling. I'm not sure what your point is. Remember, short concise paragraphs! But when Exxon does it, it should be anti-trust.

Bill, 1st of all, you are confusing my ideas with the rhetoric of the neocons. If the feds are relieved of all local problems, it will be up to the states and localities to take up the slack. i.e. Pennsylvania would need to raise the limits on local taxation and raise state taxes. This would be more than offset by significant cuts in federal taxes.

There would be a little more in people's pockets, but not enough to cause pricing inflation. Ain't gonna happen. What we would get is more efficient government that would be answerable to the public. Your very growth and population argument begs for this kind of solution.

Most importantly, the U.S. Government wouldn't go bankrupt in our lifetime. On the present course, it probably will.
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...Oh, the freedom of the day that yielded to no rule or time...

[songsmith]

How about this:
1) Capitalism is not always good. The haves always trump the have-nots, and the GOP is the party of the rich.
2) Nobody deserves a 400 million-dollar bonus for doing anything short of eliminating world hunger. Nobody.
3) Nobody likes paying taxes. Deal with it.

Hope that helps clarify. ------->JMS

[lonewolf]

[lonewolf]

[lonewolf]

[lonewolf]

[mjb]

is there anything you don't know?

[lonewolf]

Heh, heh, heh...thanks for the plug, but there are more things that I don't know than there are stars in the universe.
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...Oh, the freedom of the day that yielded to no rule or time...