"If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a question."

(apologies to Patch)

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2010 528Xi
I demand justice.
Or, if there must be injustice, let it be in my favor.

Reynold's Wrap: it's not just for hats anymore.

I always find it confusing why people think it's the govenrment's obligation to protect the people from military attack, but not from anything else. If people die from starvation, lack of health care, poisoning, in a car accident, in an unsafe workplace, etc. -- none of that should be the government's concern. But for the 0.000001% of the people who die from terrorism -- for that tiny tiny tiny percentage, we should spend 50+% of our tax money on that concern.

Yeah, that makes tons of sense.

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my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...

Your plan is great if we lived on planet Utopia. Use history as your guide and you will see we live on a planet filled with conflict and shifting World powers.

How do you think we (the United States) managed to get where we are today? That would depend on what snapshot of history you use as a reference.

Here is one answer of many:

We outspent the Russians.

I realize that your Planet Utopia has no conflict and everyone looks out for each other; however, last time I looked we were the planet Earth were conflict still exists and World History dictates the Strong Survive.

My "plan" works very well for most of the countries in the developed world, most of whom have a higher standard of living than the United States, less crime, better education, better health care, and better quality of life in general.


And where are we today?

Yes indeed, we are the country that has the most poverty and worst health care system in the developed world.

Yes, we are the country that has the highest crime and murder rates of any country in the developed world.

Yes, we have a $8+ trillion national debt.

But yes of course, we have the best military in the world.

We are like the big dumb bully you went to high school with that can surely kick your ass, but works as the late night custodian at target.

You may be happy with where we are as a nation, but I am certainly not. I think we can do much better.

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my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...

LOL and Dennis Kucinich is just the guy to make things better.

I for one am glad you are in the minority.

That is what a government does, be it democratic, communistic or a monarchy. The whole goal is security for its citizens, nothing else. People in modern times have confused security with daily 'needs'. Health is not an obligation of the government, no where in the constitution of the United States did it say "and health care for all" or "safe workplaces for all" or "food for all". These have been added to the obligation for better and for worse. It confuses me that people make the assumption that these daily needs are a GOVERNMENTS responsibility.

But alas, people love to push blame for societies failures to anything but society....it MUST be big brothers fault. Big Brother MUST be doing it wrong, we could all do it better.

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An unwavering defender of those I see worth protecting.

"promote the general welfare, not provide the general welfare"

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

This was one of the most SUBJECTIVE commentaries you've ever made.

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An unwavering defender of those I see worth protecting.

"promote the general welfare, not provide the general welfare"

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

"communistic" is not a kind of government, but a kind of economy.



The original constitution did not allow for an income tax either. But as long as we are now paying income tax, some of us expect certain services for our money.

If the government is only going to provide security, then they can do so without collecting income tax, just as they did way back then. The income tax was added in 1913 (when the 16th ammendment was ratified) to allow the government to provide services to the people in a collective way.

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my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...

You have taxation with representation...use it. I'd love to know how you maintain a military with out funds....amazing capability.

So you admit the government in no way was formed to protect the day to day piece of mind of its citizens aside from their security. Thanks for the agreement.

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An unwavering defender of those I see worth protecting.

"promote the general welfare, not provide the general welfare"

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.