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I am a moderate conservative. I believe in personal responsibility. If you mess up, it's your own fault.

Did these people screw up by not being able to foretell the oncoming collapse of these industries? Did they screw up by not being able to keep their medical insurance when they lost their jobs and had to find positions which would pay for either that coverage, or their food and shelter, and then got sick? Where is the line as far as personal responsibility?

Hey, shat happens. I myself am from a family where we lived below the poverty line for many years. My wife is the same. I grew up in northern Maine where I witnessed the decline of the small time farmer (grandfather and uncles included), the poor job market, and the closure of an Air Force base. All of these factors affected the local economy negatively. My father, a contractor, began having health problems when I was about 12. What he did was quit the construction business, go to college and get a degree in mathematics (my mom supported our family with a job as an administrative assistant). He then started teaching school as an alternative to his old labor-intensive job. In the 70's my dad moved to North Carolina where there was a construction boom so he could support his new family. You have to have your own backup plans. I'm sure you aren't relying on Social Security for your retirement, are you?



Nope. But just because I have time to plan, and people to fall back on, doesn't mean everyone does. Moving to find work isn't free either, sometimes you need money to get money, and when you don't have it, no one wants to loan it to you.

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Where is the incentive to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and work hard for your own good when you know that you have a government that will support you if you cannot? Especially when you buy into the viewpoint that it is a recurring cycle.


And what happens when you're so screwed that you can't even get that far? If you're a single parent with a kid, for instance, and no relatives you can pawn the kid off on for a day, how do you go work? And, just to cut off whatever silly discussion might follow, let's say it's a widow whose spouse died in Iraq or something. You can't just take the kid to work, having someone random not related to you helping is... public assistance, right?

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After considerable thought I came up with the concession I'd offer towards Libertarians if I were in power: codify in law that social programs would be reduced and eliminated, and taxes dropped accordingly, as charity met social needs. Like, if charity can help, when that's proven, then we let charity do it, and give you your money back. When charity has no pants, everyone else gets to bend over, too.

This is an interesting viewpoint. I think this would actually be a good start.


I don't think anyone will buy it, which is a shame, because I think a lot of us are really in it for the same ends, but disagree on how we will get there. There are certainly "screw em, let em fend for themselves" people, but I'd argue there are far fewer of those than people who just don't want people living on the dole, and really, neither do I. But I think the flipside is we're sort of screwed now, we have semi-effective government programs, and semi-effective private programs, and the continuing battle over which way we should move to find a real solution is very academic and not actually *doing* anything.

Here, I feel powerless. At work, when things get deadlocked, well, I have enough powers that I can often walk away for a while, come back, and say "while you were arguing about it, I fixed the problem. If you decide you don't like the way I did it, you're welcome to fix it another way, but I'm not going to break it for you while you do, I'm done now.", and while it's often suboptimal, it beats flopping around trying to find direction forever. Here, well, no one of us has the power to move things. Me putting all my money into the government or you putting all of yours into charity would just screw us, and not actually make any difference.

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