Too tired to respond. HELP!

[helderheid]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6232558 by OneGrassRoot had me post the following note on my facebook page (do the same, send emails, go go go!)

Tired of the government interfering and don't want socialism?

Pledge to do the following and get others to do the same:

1. TEAR UP your Medicare card! This is one of the biggest socialist programs in America! (Republicans tried to prevent it from happening in the first place all those years ago!)

2. If you're retired military, REFUSE ANY FURTHER BENEFITS! You served your country well, but you don't want to live off of anything run by the incompetent government.

3. Discourage anyone from joining the military, since our military is one of the biggest government-run programs we have!

4. REFUSE TO RECEIVE SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS! That ugly word "social" is right there in the name!!!

5. Heck, we also have socialized police and fire protection, roads and bridges, public health programs like vaccinations, food and drug laws, etc. Do your part to advocate for the dismantling of these socialist programs! We're Americans -- we can do everything ourselves and, if you can't, you don't deserve to be here. Pay extra to have all your mail delivered by companies such as UPS and DHL

6. And, since the government can't do anything right, why do we even vote, even for Republicans? They're the ones who say the government doesn't work, so why do we vote them into office in the government only to collect a paycheck we're paying for? JUST DON'T VOTE AT ALL!

(One warning: Since we don't want the government interfering in our personal lives, we absolutely can't be hypocrites. We will have to give up the fight against legislating abortion, gay marriage, end-of-life issues and other values we hold so dear.)


And, finally, just so we don't let those "liberal elite" types try to confuse us with fancy language, let's take a stand on who we are and what we are all about.

WE ARE PROUD CONSERVATIVES! That means "we are disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change."

We want to restore things to pre-Civil Rights days. The country REALLY went to hell in a hand basket starting with all that civil rights legislation. NOW look who's in the White House!

WE DEPLORE ANYTHING PROGRESSIVE (progressive: "favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are").

We don't want anything to improve. We're perfect. We're Americans. WE'RE NUMBER ONE!!!!

I got this RW response:

Ok I'll Bite....
Lincoln was a Republican...He started he civil rights movement...Freed the slaves.

The Military is a career. Many jobs have benefits and they are earned. People who seved EARNED the benefits. You are confusing earning and wanting an entitlement.

The consevatives have been fighting for social security to be privatized for years. Can't do that though because the government blew the money on other social prograns years ago. The piggy bank is empty..but I'll opt out of paying into it today and give up the benefit anytime.

UPS, Fedex, and DHLwould crush the USPS, and they're not even subsidized by the federal government. The USPS has a over a 70 Billion dollar budget and has a 6 billion Dollar deficit. Could you run a business with an extra 70 Billion?

The Military, Police, and Fire are not entitlements. Our tax $'s buy those services.

Fortunately, I also go this very sane response (DU'er - could use more like this):

Jim, Your tax dollars can buy any thing the government wants. Schools, welfare, armies, heath care. We chose what we want to pay for, so by your definition all public expenditures are entitlements. We just decide which ones add to the general good of all. I have news for you, but I pay for social security so I believe I have earned it. So when I get to be old enough to collect I expect too. This piggy bank is never empty just as long as we keep having kids and they keep working. That is how social security works.
Sorry Jim your arguments don't hold water. Stop listing to Rush and take a history or economics class. Then you will see your errors. I don't have time to address them all. To compare Lincoln Republicans to modern Republicans is just stupid.

Anyone else want to chime in? :) I've had one of those days where my brain went into idle mode so I dare not get into this with him but would love suggestions for tomorrow. :) Also, if you're my FB friend, please feel free to respond on my note!

Love ya, DU!

[helderheid]

1. New response from winger

Social Security is a ponzi scheme and they're sending people to jail for that. It's been full of I.O U.'s for years. It was only designed to pay you for a couple years not 20 or 30.

I have a degree in Economics.

I chose not to pay for your health care, welfare or schools. It would be nice if we could decide as individuals which programs we would like to participate in. I'd chose the military, police and fire, but not a government health care program.

BTW, I'm not sure you can compare any of the corrupt modern politicians to those of the centuries before.

[jkshaw]

3. This guy is young.

With a degree in economics he expects to be another Warren Buffet with billions to fund his retirement and health needs. He's a dreamer with a greed complex. There are legions of people like that, especially in Utah. They vote for tax cuts for the rich because they expect, by some miracle, to be rich someday themselves. It never stops surprising me. Farmers, small sheep men, barbers, they vote against their own interests all the time because they're looking forward to lives of luxury against all good sense.

[redqueen]

8. They've been infected with the greed disease.

That's what I call it. Sad.

[The Mailman]

12. ponzi scheme

Its interesting he throws that out there. I've gotten that response to. I don't know how to answer it. While SS doesn't promise massive returns, I'm trying to come up with other ways that its different from a ponzi scheme. I'm truly stumped.

[helderheid]

2. ok, I tagged a bunch of all y'all

[helderheid]

4. kick - still need more replies, though I did go ahead and respond.

[rosesaylavee]

5. Saw and responded directly.

This needs to be framed as an insurance reform movement. My doc BIL is going nuts... says the whole system is broken. Hospitals and docs are being put in a position to cover what's going wrong and they can't do it for much longer. He's not above giving a patient a break here and there but he says they are inundated with people who can't pay. Without reform, we will just not have healthcare that is anything close to viable. This will seem like heaven compared to what's to come if this doesn't get passed and have some teeth on it to curb the insurance company excesses.

[margotb822]

6. It's the price we pay for being Americans

One does not get to pick and choose what government benefits their taxes are applied to. If you don't want to participate in our society, fine, leave. But if you do, then you have to accept the imperfect union that we have. And, all these people that complain they don't want their money going to schools, health care, etc, don't realize 1) they benefit from a better educated society (ie, better, more competent workers, greater labor pool to choose from) and 2) they're already paying the costs of the uninsured, only no one's is getting care. Instead of hospitals and insurance companies eating the cost of treating uninsured, they pass it on to us in the form of higher fees.

Want to breathe clean air while you live? Thank your federal taxes. Want to turn on the faucet and have safe drinking water? Thank your federal government. Want to drive a safe car? Thank your federal government. Want to work 40 hours a week? Thank your federal government. Don't want to breathe asbestos or have lead-based paint? Thank your federal government. Want to use common currency in every state? Thank your federal government. Want to drive on an interstate highway system? Thank your federal government.

Every day we wake up in one of the safest and most innovative countries in the world because of the efforts of the federal government. We may not be perfect, but we have a lot to be thankful for. But, we have fought for each of the safeties, for each of the protections.

Do you know how much it costs to mail a letter from CA to NY? $0.44 with the USPS. With the rise of email, revenue has dropped, but you can't mail things cheaper in the private sector. And, who mostly depends on the post office? The elderly. Sweet idea, bankrupt the eldery by taking away the USPS.

As far as the military, yes, many people do earn benefits and need the medical care (because they have "pre-existing conditions" and are uninsurable in the private market). But, more people milk the system to get disability benefits that they don't actually need. Retirement is one thing, medical disability is another. It's pretty much as easy as "ooh, my knees hurt, the Navy gave me a bad back" and the military forks over disability.

Ask your genius friend how people would have fared had their SS been privatized last year (Answer: fucking terribly). SS isn't a profit machine, it's a SOCIAL SECURITY. It came from the GREAT DEPRESSION. It's to SECURE a future for workers. Now, if the government wasn't also pillaging SS for WAR and TAX CUTS, we'd be in a different position. Conservatives just want to use SS as capital for their risky ventures. Besides, an economist would know that a balanced retirement portfolio has different sources of income, SS being just one.

PS: Abe Lincoln was a Republican, but he wasn't really a conservative. If this guy knew more about history, he would realize the impact that Lincoln had on the Republican image in the South and how Southerners voted for Democrats because they were so angry about the Civil War and reconstruction (not Lincoln's purview, I realize, but an impact of the war). For generations, people voted for a party out of hate for the other party. It wasn't until the civil rights movements in the 1950s and 60s that shifted the tide. The South has been conservative for more than 150 years, but the parties shifted around the political spectrum.

PPS: Lincoln didn't free the slaves on a whim, he did it to inject emotion into a losing war effort. His main goal was to hold the union together, but that wasn't thrilling to most people after a few years. If you read the EP, it's obvious that no slaves were actually freed (until after the war). Again, basic history...

[helderheid]

10. Many thanks!

[applegrove]

7. Your original post was great. Spot on! Way to go. They mostly didn't respond to your arguments

directly. Ignore them and post this letter at many forums online. Keep at it. You done good.

[gleaner]

9. If you want to consider only one of the debacles..

of privatization of a government function, consider this one. It isn't Social Security, but it could have been with the same type of disastrous results. The Internal Revenue Service farmed out its return processing to Carnegie Mellon Bank several years back. With more workers to process the returns than IRS had used, Carnegie Mellon employees felt overwhelmed. Their answer was to destroy incoming returns until they had what they considered to be a more manageable work load.

The IRS did not know this until taxpayers called asking where their refunds were, and other taxpayers wanted to know why they were being dunned for taxes they had paid. The IRS went to Carnegie Mellon, which had a collective chat with the employees doing IRS work and soon found out what had happened. IRS had to have the taxpayers try to reconstruct their returns, had to process them expeditiously to try to keep the public from finding out, pay refunds, excuse payments that had been made for taxes and hire extra workers to do this. It was a fantastically expensive experiment. Carnegie Mellon, which could not be held financially liable did not pay a cent in restitution. Also the taxpayers affected were appalled to find out that IRS had no way to force private contractors not to disclose information about individual taxpayers. Don't you love privatization? If it is already broken, then privatizing will completely destroy it.

Also, Lincoln did not start the Civil Rights movement. That was started in the early 60s. What Lincoln did was to wage a war to stop secession of the states where it was legal to keep slaves. Freeing the slaves was called Abolition. Abolition may have been the trigger issue, but it was not the reason for the civil war. Secession was the reason for the Civil War. Lincoln was determined to keep the union of states together. After the civil war, the freed slaves in many cases were denied their basic rights, tortured by vigilante groups with the blessing of local governments, while the federal government ignored the situation, and were segregated legally from the rest of the population at large. They were denied jobs, education, voting rights and the ability to make a decent living. That was what started the Civil Rights movement. The desperation of an abused and ignored segment of the population who wanted equal rights as Americans. I recommend to your correspondent that he do some historical reading and learn more about abolition, the civil war and the Civil Rights movement. Look at some of the pictures of the civil rights protesters and get a really good, basic idea of what happens when your government deserts you and leaves you in the hands of mobs and others who feel that the federal government has no business helping its citizens no matter what is happening.

[rosesaylavee]

11. I love your friend Patrick...

His response: if you have a degree in economics, go ask for your money back.