[b said:
Quote[/b] (Casper @ May 04 2004,6:38)]
Hi,
[b said:
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Sounds to me, that you didn't go into "public service" untill you had to leave your career to take care of your parents. Doesn't sound quite as noble this way (the public service part, not taking care of your parents, for that I commend you, and I am truely sorry about the health issues)
Actually, I started teaching before the health of my parents collapsed. I found out that it was something I love. Few advancement opportunities, income ceilings, no profit motive but like so many things in life outside of a business worldview -- absolutely crucial to society's existence. The motivation , like most necessary things in life is not external (financial) but internal -- the basic idea most of the world's great religions try to teach every time they gather to worship. Using religion as so many do to justify selfishness and bigotry and to simply save their own souls is a mockery of religion's deep origins inside the human being. Our inability to understand priorities outside of the bottomline is destroying this country every day.
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Hmm, forced slavery after high school, I have an 8 X 10 of how the American people would feel about that.[/quote]
Not slavery at all. Social responsibilty. Although from Reagan on, we have raised a generation that only knows buy buy buy consume consume consume want want want me me me as the highest moral order of FREEDOM -- it is a lie. Germany requires such service. Israel requires such service. I am sure most western democracies require what you label selfishness. The easiest way to measure the moral collapse of the American ideal is to ask for required social service. You are right, 90% of the people would have a fit and the richer they were the bigger the fit would be. There is no accident that liberal thought disappeared from the 60's draft protesters the moment their lives were no longer on the line. It was a self serving liberalism and not a deep understanding of society and responsibility. It amazes me that patriotic, America is great Love it or Leave it, Americans would think of required public service -- after this great nation has given you freedom for FREE -- as slavery. Can reasoning be any more selfish than that?
[b said:
Quote[/b] ] I would require prisoners to be society's maids.
Agreed.
So, crooks must earn freedom but everyone else can just consume it at will without a price or let poor boys and girls who want a college education do the dying and serving for them? Gee, that's a healthy national character.
[b said:
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Well, although it is better than our current system. I am still an advocate for smaller gov't, not bigger.
Take a look at the airline industry vrs. the Space industry.
You are comparing apples and oranges. The airline industry is a business and space exploration is research and development science. It may finally be time to privatize space -- and its happening and business will benefit mightily from the 40 years of NASA's R&D. Business has long benefited from tax dollars spent by the gov't -- look at the internet and computers. Our knee-jerk Re-pub anti-gov't propaganda (so deeply Uuamerican, btw) has blinded us to the real benefits of big gov't since Reagan. The South would still be a mosquito infested, backwater, unair-conditioned, racist swamp without federal tax dollars starting in the 1930's. The MidWest farm states that support small gov't would be broke without the higher taxes New Jersey pays. Iowa gets more federal aid than New Jersey does and NJ pays more. Odd that NJ votes for Dems who take more of their money and not Repubs who would supposedly give it back to them. I wonder what NJ "gets" that the South and Midwest do not? Who are the real freeloaders here?
To compare NASA to the airlines you would have to compare the airlines from 1903 to 1940 to NASA from 1960-2004.
Contrary to all the Re-pub propaganda since Reagan, big gov't works and works well -- and remember it is tackling the truly difficult problems in society and not the profit making "cream" problems the private sector loves to roll out as proof of its being "better" at the job.
[b said:
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The private sector has grown the Airline industry in leaps and bounds.
The gov't is still flying 20+ year old shuttles.
apples and oranges
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That is absurd. You are taking away my freedom to choose where my child goes to school. If I want to send my child to a Catholic school so that they are around other Catholics that is my choice.[/quote]
Yes, that is your choice but I believe it is a bad choice for America overall and I would fight to change the law. I believe we need institutions that ALL go through so that we socialize everyone into one big nation. That is more important here than your personal choice. I believe people should have to contact and learn to deal with and respect all kinds of people with all kinds of beliefs and all kinds of income. There should be no "gated" communities in America -- physically or mentally. Income should not be used to isolate and separate society. It will destroy our weak bonds and that is a greater danger and loss than your loss of personal choice on this issue. I would also do away with home schooling. Public school. Period. Make it work. Public school represents the very fabric and challenge of America itself.
[b said:
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I bought my first home a year ago. I payed 120K for it, a 4 bedroom, 2 bath home in a nice neighborhood with a big yard, and 15 minutes away from the city. ANY family should be able to afford a home like mine on a combined income of 40K a year. Not real hard for a single person, but 20K a year a piece? You gotta be kidding me.
I don't understand you here.
[b said:
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Seems to me, Enron got away with it during the Dems candidacy, they where caught under the repubs, hmmmm.
LOLOLOLOLOL. The Repubs didn't expose Enron. It collapsed as **** Cheney had Enron making US energy policy and funding the Bush campaign. Enron was the perfect example of me me me ambition ambition ambition greed greed greed that the Re-pubs preach. Thay ran their tax scams on the gov't and screwed Calif. on energy with the deregulation and profiteering Enron loved and worked to produce. Enron is the poster boy for Re-pub philosophy practiced without any big gov't restraints. What a lovely image of the future.
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Are you saying the country is now racist against whites, because statisticaly there are more whites than any other minorities in public school. Heck, blacks even have there own higher education funds.[/quote]
NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's ok, whites have their good old boy system that gets C student mental midgets like Bush into Yale.
[b said:
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We are a commercial company, public image means nothing to us. We have a great image with our customers because of our performance, not our image. I have yet to see our company make a single dollar off of any of these donations. It really bothers me that when we even try to do something good, it is construed to be something we actually did for ourselves.
Image or no, you are funding nice safe middle class programs. That is great but not a recipe or example for attacking social problems or ills. Your donations stay safely in the world you value and believe in.
[b said:
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You have got to be kidding me, right? Someone deserves a raise because they simply showed up and did there job? Newsflash buddy, thats what they get a paycheck for. You get a raise by going above and beyond, by learning more aspects of the trade, and by being a leader of men.
So doing one's job well year after year is not worth a raise? Interesting. As you age I hope you learn to see past your youthful mindset. Doing just one's job well is ONE REASON profits go up and therefore a real reason for a raise and bonus -- not the only reason but a real reason. I'm sorry you do not see that.
[b said:
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This is our inherint difference. I don't want to understand all people. I don't really care to either, I have a hard enough time understanding myself and the people that I care about.
Yes, exactly. It becomes so much easier to understand one's self and family once one learns to understand others -- ironic and non-linear but oh so so so true. You have a wonderful discovery yet to come through age and living.
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I have one for you. You want to increase taxes, then thats fine, but lets even the playing board a bit. Lets make a flat federal income tax. Everyone making over 22K a year gets taxed the exact same percentage, clear accross the board. Why should someone who works there tail off to make more be punished for it? If it where up to people like you everyone would be taxed untill we all came home with 30K a year.
A flat tax benefits the rich and hurts the poor as say 10% of $35,000 hits that guy alot harder than 10% of $1,000,000. The flat tax sounds fair but is as unfair as it comes. Why do you think that the rich love it so -- because it helps the poor? LOLOLOLOL. It is regressive and wrong. I believe in progressive taxes and in closing more and more loopholes the richer the income climbs. I think that anyone making over a million a year should be taxed out the whazoo. If that destroys their ambition -- great. Let them stop at that level because someone else will then come along and take over the unworked extra and make another million dollar business and on and on. I'd rather have 500 unmotivated stagnant millionaires stuck making a million a year with no reason to work any harder due to taxes than one billionaire who is an ambitious tax cheat! Ponder that idea!
[b said:
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AMBITION is what made this country great.
DESIRE is what drives a man to better himself.
FREEDOM and EQUALITY made this nation great -- along with stealing a continent rich in easy to grab natural resources and a lack of real competition in its young development.
Desire firmly attached to deep SOCIAL morality -- not just PERSONAL morality the fav of Re-pubs and Christians today -- made us live up to our best ideals -- "The angels of our better nature" as Lincoln wrote.
Where we differ is on the fault line of America today -- a culture defined only by personal greed and ambition or a culture defined by social morality and justice. Yours is alot more fun and sexy -- all religious posing to the contrary. Mine is kind of dull and unsexy but it is truly deeply moral.
Bobby