Say Anything Blog

It’s funny; the Asian community isn’t wringing its hands over being focused on academic achievement.  That is the real message here, Rob.  It’s the old leftie con that “self-esteem” is more important than academic achievement.  In fact, according to the lefties, academic achievement shouldn’t be a focus of school at all.  Their message is “Can’t we all just get along?” The rise of the antiwar idiots isn’t because they were made to focus on academic achievement, but because they never learned to have a real world focus and a love for their country.

As my mother says, “anything that doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.”

Safety nets encourage risky behavior. When there are no consequences to failure we tend to act more irresponsibly.

Please name one government program for which it is as beneficial to fall back onto the program as it is solve the problem on your own (assuming you’re capable).

While I have no problem with subsidizing safety nets for those who truly cannot provide for themselves (the truly disabled, mentally handicapped, etc.), I will never been in favor of protecting people who are capable of providing for themselves from the consequences of their own actions.

I think that’s something everyone agrees on.  The problem comes in very precisely defining who can and cannot “provide for themselves.” A blind person?  A person with no arms or legs?  A woman with six children?  People living in areas where large employers have just left (factories moving, for instance), and where there are no jobs and not enough money to fund a move to another part of the country? 

I don’t mean this as inflammatory, I’m just curious: how precisely do you define a person who cannot provide for themselves?

Now, to be inflammatory. 

robert108 says:

It’s the old leftie con that “self-esteem” is more important than academic achievement. In fact, according to the lefties, academic achievement shouldn’t be a focus of school at all. Their message is “Can’t we all just get along?” The rise of the antiwar idiots isn’t because they were made to focus on academic achievement, but because they never learned to have a real world focus and a love for their country.

You’re right, rob.  All liberals think self-esteem is more important than actual education.  It’s just like how all conservatives hate gays and blacks.  You’ve defined us perfectly.  That’s exactly how all liberals are.

Moreover, when a liberal says, “Hey, let’s not go to war because that’s bad for the thousands of people who will die, it’s bad for our economy, and it’s unethical,” they’re not saying that because they love America.  They’re just saying that because they’re an anti-American, anti-war nutjob. 

Back to reality.

The fact of the matter is, it’s comments like that that serve to further divide people who essentially believe the same things.  It’s people like Ann Coulter and Micheal Moore who really only do more damage to the greatest country in the world when they preach their one-side “all people on the other side believe x” dogma.  It’s sincerely believing that “all people on the other side believe x” that makes a person an intellectually bankrupt debater. 

Having read your posts, robert108, I can say that you’re a smart guy who believes some truly wacko things about the left.  Be smarter than that, and be better aware of how pigeonholing is part of the problem.  Be as smart as you are.

Pax,
bobocopy

As a side-note: I’m a liberal who completely believes in the content of the article presented.  We all most definitely need to challenge our kids.  This isn’t a new problem.

bobocopy: Please don’t assign your thoughts to me.  “All liberals think self-esteem is more important than actual education.” I was referring to the lefties who run our educational system, obviously, since we are talking about the educational system here.  Your generalization was intellectually dishonest.  Shame on you!

“Hey, let’s not go to war because that’s bad for the thousands of people who will die, it’s bad for our economy...”

Now you’re confusing me.  The usual leftie riff on war is that it’s necessary to prop up an economic system(ours) that needs constant war to work at all.  Make up your mind.

I believe the spokesman for the DNC, Howard Dean, represents mainstream leftie thought.  Read any of his statements if you think I’m responsible for being “divisive”.  If that’s not enough for you, go to Daily Kos and Dem Underground, and read what they have to say about America.  I stand for the founding principles of America, as in that Constitution thingie, you know?  Those who would pervert the Constitution to serve their minority pressure group agendas are the dividers.  Wake up, dude!

bobocopy: Please don’t assign your thoughts to me. “All liberals think self-esteem is more important than actual education.” I was referring to the lefties who run our educational system, obviously, since we are talking about the educational system here. Your generalization was intellectually dishonest. Shame on you!

Not trying to pick a fight, but if that’s what you were saying, that’s what you should have said.  You can really take a lot of the cut of a sweeping statement if you qualify it (rather than just saying assuming that it’s qualified).  I think if you’d said, “The liberals who run our education system think self-esteem is more important than actual education,” I would have had no problem with what you’d said. 

I agree that Howard Dean is divisive.  He might even represent “mainstream” liberal thought, but to say that all liberals agree with and think like Howard Dean is a little off-kilter.  Likewise for the comment about “the usual leftie riff on the war.”

The fact of the matter is that, like conservatives, liberals are a diverse, thinking bunch.  All it takes, though, is for a few nutjobs to scream at the top of their lungs, and people think, “Crazy liberals/ conservatives.”

Wake up, dude!

P.S. What makes you think I’m a dude?

Back to the topic.

The feminization of Men in America has caused even the women to become weaker.

Vouchers.

I know that seems like a hijack.  But where do they learn non competitive stuff.  In stupid public schools.

Let me or Rob have them for a few months.  Rob would take the to Alaska to kill bears.  If they did well the next time he’d even give them a weapon.

All kidding aside, the softness and weakness of most men and many women is pitiful.

Toughen up.

I know I’m preachin to the choir here.  No girly men here.

But, what is heck is wrong with us when our kids fall down and cry if they don’t get thier way.

I would blame liberals if I could, but this is universal.

Heck, I know a little 8 year old boy who would’t go to camp this summer because if he slept in a tent there would be bugs. 

HUH?

Of course there will be bugs.  There’ll be bugs in life too.  GET OVER IT>

"I know I’m preachin to the choir here. No girly men here.”

We can’t be sure, Gene; bobocopy won’t take a stand on that.

Hahaha!

(It’s ‘cause I’m a wishy-washy liberal.  )

bobocopy: I honestly don’t care whether you’re a boy or a girl, but the fact that you won’t say is very revealing.  Trouble being honest? Think it might put you at a disadvanage?  Why so shy?

I honestly don’t care whether you’re a boy or a girl, but the fact that you won’t say is very revealing. Trouble being honest? Think it might put you at a disadvanage? Why so shy?

I’m neither a boy nor a girl.  (I’m a man.)

Sorry, I wasn’t trying to come off as, “Don’t you wish you knew!?!?!?” I just made a couple of (hilarious) jokes.

If you say so, dude.  Denying your masculinity(or calling it into doubt) is funny?

This is exactly why at 5am I have my kids out running the confidence course. 

If they start whining I respond with the obligatory “Do you think the soldiers on Bataan were complaining “I’m only in 2nd Grade?”

It’s good for them.

TW: Great stuff!

bobocopy said, Please name one government program for which it is as beneficial to fall back onto the program as it is solve the problem on your own (assuming you’re capable).

There isn’t one. Rob’s point was that there was a safety net that encourages risky behavior. He said nothing of that safety net being just as desireable or beneficial as solving the problem on your own.

To expand on Likwid’s point, people are often willing to settle for a less desireable situation if it is easier to attain.

Think of it like this: Living out on your own is a better thing than living at home with your parents, yet many people choose to not leave home once they’re adults because it’s easier to just live with the folks.

Same applies here.  You may not get as much money sitting at home and living off worker’s comp benefits when you’re capable of working, but it sure is easier than getting up and going to work every day.  Which is why so many people do it.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Isn’t the purpose of a safety net to insulate those who are either incapable or unwilling to take care of themselves of the consequences of that?  Is there a semantic problem here?

Think of it like this: Living out on your own is a better thing than living at home with your parents, yet many people choose to not leave home once they’re adults because it’s easier to just live with the folks.

Excellent point. 

So what’s the alternative?  A ladder falls on you at work and you’re SOL?  Or are you saying there should still be worker’s comp benefits, but that they should somehow be better-enforced? 

I absolutely admit that there are people on welfare, worker’s comp, unemployment who are dead weight to taxpayers at large.  Do we cut programs for them and tell the people who really do need the programs, “So long, good luck”?  Do we try better to enforce the issues at hand?  Even that enforcement will cost us a lot of money.

I don’t think you’re wrong, but do you have a specific answer?

It’s called means testing, bobo.  It should be required for every govt program.  BTW, WC is paid for by the worker, in truth.  If the worker weren’t worth the total expense to the employer, he wouldn’t be hired in the first place, so technically, it’s not a govt program.  It’s a govt-administered program, which is almost as bad, though. They act like it’s their money, when it’s yours.

I don’t have a specific answer because when we talk about social spending we’re talking about a wide range of problems.  Unemployment, welfare, workers comp, etc.

The key, in all of these things, is to approach the problem from the angle of encouraging people to use them as little as possible.  Right now I hear bureaucrats crowing all the time about how many people their particular social service helped.  The fact so many people need the social service is not something we should be proud of.

Some social services we don’t need at all.  Social Security?  Please.  Let Americans save for their own retirements (the handicapped and others who collect SS and truly need it can be shifted to some other program).  Prescription drugs?  Pay for ‘em yourself.

Spending on the big three entitlements (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security) is at about $3 billion/day and goes up at about an 8% yearly clip.  Obviously, this is unsustainable...yet any attempts to curb this spending is met with whines from the left.

What America needs is a new way of thinking.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Actually, Robert, I think there’s only four states (ND is one of them) that still administer worker’s comp.  The rest require that you have it, but allow you to go to the private insurance sector for it.

Which I guess means that the government still sort of administers it…

I think a major key to help curb social spending is to have a sunset law.  Make legislators have to renew every single program every 3 or 4 years or something.  I wouldn’t mind spreading it out so that not all programs are up for renew every year, but making our politicians review them and determine their effectiveness every five years would really help draw attention to a lot of the waste.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Rob
“Spending on the big three entitlements (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security) is at about $3 billion/day and goes up at about an 8% yearly clip. Obviously, this is unsustainable...yet any attempts to curb this spending is met with whines from the left.”
Excuse me, but wasn’t it the Republicans who passed the obscene Medicare drug benefit thing recently?
Let’s face it, both parties pander…

Those programs were created by Dems.  It is much more difficult to “kill” and existing program than it is to not start it in the first place.  Look at all the lying and propagandizing around reforming SS by the “progressives”.  Blame the ones who gave us this crap in the first place.  They were just buying votes.