(August 23, 2013 at 12:41 pm)Koolay Wrote: I'm serious, show me one single successful government program or law, and I will accept the government as valid.
The welfare state, since it's inception has created a higher wealth gap and higher unemployment than when it started.
The "War on drugs" has not changed people's use of recreational drugs, it has remained exactly the same, the only difference is some people are thrown in cages for owning a plant and thousands of dollars are taken from each citizen in tax money.
Public schools, when it was first introduced, literacy rates went down.
"The War on Terror" boils down to bombing hundreds of thousands of brown people, many civilians. Which is terrorism by definition, bombing civilians houses is terrorism.
Making it illegal to work for low wages (shockingly!) made it worse for the poor. higher unemployment particularly with minorities and youth.
Everything the government claims they will achieve, the opposite happens. So please, I implore you, find me any government program that has worked.
The rules:
- The program's results has to coincide with what the government claims they are going to achieve.
- It can not be curing a problem they created in the first place. I.e, taking everyone's money to fund a war then giving them rations while saying "We would be starving without the government" is not acceptable.
- The evidence has to be outside of government studies. Any studies from the government will not be accepted. It's like expecting objective information about coca-cola products from coca-cola. It's obviously going to be biased.
You want to make this a simple issue, and it isn't.
First, demonstrate your own literacy by learning when to include an apostrophe in the word, 'its'. If you can't say, "it is" when you include an apostrophe, you've got it wrong, buccaroo. "It's (it is) time to take a bath." <-- correct. "It's (it is) fur was dirty." <-- incorrect. See?
By what measure is a program "successful?"
Medicare by most measures is a successful program.
Social Security was a successful social safety net for many years, until Congress critters began raiding it to fund other programs and the populace at large began to view it and use it as a retirement fund. That was never its intent. It can be successful again, however, with some tweaks. Remember making fun of Al Gore and his "lockbox?" This is what he meant. It's (it is) still funny to remember how he said "lockbox," though, huh?
The freeway system you use, the electrical grid system through which travels the electricity powering your computer and enabling you to publish your opinions on this forum... successful government programs built those.
School lunch programs and food stamps feed millions of people who once went hungry. Successful if you're one of the poverty-stricken. If you hate people who are down on their luck, maybe not successful by your measure.
The "War on Terror" was a term swallowed only by idiots who were unable to discern that you can't have a war against a tactic. If you didn't see that from the beginning, then shame on you.
Similarly, the "War on Drugs" was a nice talking point -- but no one should ever have seriously thought of it as a "war." Language matters. As for its success, we're big on treating symptoms in this country, not causes. Every administration has failed on this one. Taking on the drug lords is a recipe for failure (symptom). Destroying demand for drugs would be much more successful (cause).
The issues behind public education are complex, not easily reduced to casual sound bites regarding "success" and "failure." Public schools are failing for many, many reasons. Ignorant parents is one of the chief reasons, in my view. It isn't a question of funding; rather, it's a question of means testing; where the emphasis on learning is placed; what curricula are taught. For instance, I was shocked to find that the theory (oh, let's admit it -- fact) of evolution is hardly any longer taught in public schools. There are no words. Why might that be? Again, don't concern yourself with the symptom. Identify the cause(s). They are many.
And seriously? You don't think laws protect you? I'll try and remember that the next time a cop ignores a drunk driver who then kills someone with his car.
