Dominant Force in West Today According to Dennis Prager is Fear of Left

Agreed. Moscow Mitch is not interested in protecting our democracy from Russian, Saudi Arabia, China, etc from hacking voting machines or using other methods to disrupt our elections, even after showing that high school kids can hack the machines in less than 1/2 hour. Especially when you see what IDs are permitted and which aren't -- NRA yes, College no.If the purpose is to prevent someone from voting twice, any photo ID should work.But more to the point, any state instigating such a law should fall over itself to provide such IDs at no cost to the individual (no "poll tax"), even including at the voting stations.They should also be able to do it when a person reaches voting age -- they were able to issue draft cards after all.But they are against any measure to make it easier to vote.Or to get a correct count of the votes. Election fraud occurs when the reported tally does not match the actual vote count, and if the vote tally is affected by hacking the tally machines while there is no paper trail or means to recount the votes then you are wide open to election fraud.Then there is gerrymandering.Enjoy

The meaning of excoriation in this context is "to severely criticize." I was expressing my preference for an on-topic discussion over off-topic and sarcastic excoriation about moderation. A proclivity for this type of diversion, sometimes directed at individuals, sometimes at everyone, will of course bring one into conflict with board moderation, but that's not the topic of this thread.Faith never really responded to any of the substance of my Message 86, merely questioning the trustworthiness of The Guardian. Whatever criteria she's applying in determining what news sources to trust, she's not saying.--Percy

Only for an unchecked capitalistic system where the only motive for doing something is profit coupled with the idea that the economy has to grow instead of stabilize. And we don't need the economy we currently have, where most of it is composed of paper smoke -- stocks and bonds.The "growth" of the economy in the last 4 years, for example, has only benefited those with stocks and bonds selling them back and forth, much of it done with tax give-aways to the rich and companies buying up their stocks to increase their value and make the companies artificially "profitable." China still has an overpopulation problem, which is what the one child policy was meant to address. The unintended consequences of this was families selecting a male child. I disagree, I think it would be good specifically for ecological reasons. Habitat destruction, species extinctions, mono-cultures for increasingly toxic food supplies as pesticides/herbicides are (over)used. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson was an early warning regarding toxic ecologies that is being ignored, again.Could you name some benefits of increasing these?Do you know of any species that benefits from increasing population above the carrying capacity of their ecology/habitat? How? Give me some examples, not mere assertions. There is little doubt that immigration boosts the $ economy, the question is whether the society as a whole benefits: are american workers better off?Curiously, I'll bet that you agree that they aren't, and that this is one of the big reasons for the vocal objections to immigration: they use social resources that people feel should be reserved for citizens. Because they are on the losing side of the $ economy and they are on the losing side of the personal/public welfare economy.They're unhappy because income inequality is increasing and they are virtually standing still and inflation is eating whatever gains they get: costs keep rising but their paycheck is static.And let's be honest: the cost of living increase is not a percentage -- a gallon of milk costs the same for a billionaire as it does for someone on food stamps -- it is the inflation of costs for basic needs and should be the same amount for everyone. Using a percentage just siphons more off the top to the higher salaries ... the already rich.

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The Preamble

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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.

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bold/italic for emphasisWhat is the "public Welfare?" ... let's take a stab at it:

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Gross National Happiness (also known by the acronym: GNH) is a philosophy that guides the government of Bhutan. It includes an index which is used to measure the collective happiness and well-being of a population. Gross National Happiness is instituted as the goal of the government of Bhutan in the Constitution of Bhutan, enacted on 18 July 2008.[1]

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The term "Gross National Happiness" was coined in 1972 during an interview by a British journalist for the Financial Times at Bombay airport when the then king of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, said "Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross National Product."[2][3]

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In 2011, The UN General Assembly passed Resolution "Happiness: towards a holistic approach to development" urging member nations to follow the example of Bhutan and measure happiness and well-being and calling happiness a "fundamental human goal."[4]

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And we can look at:

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Happiest Countries In The World 2019

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Ever since April of 2002, a group of collaborative individuals have released an annual report in which they detail the happiness levels of people around the world, according to the countries in which people live. As of 2019, the World Happiness Report determined that Finland is the happiest country in the world.

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The report looks at countries in respect to their performance regarding six particular variables

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Gross domestic product per capita Social support Healthy life expectancy Freedom to make your own life choices Generosity of general population Perceptions of internal and external corruption levels

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Here is some background information about the top five countries on the list of the happiest countries in the world, based on the 2019 edition of the World Happiness Report.

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Finland

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Finland ranks as the happiest country in the world based on data collected for the projection of the 2019 report. The total score of Finland, if you will, is 7.769 out of a total possible score of 10.

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Denmark

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The second happiest country on the list is Denmark, which trails behind Finland with a ranking of 7.600 -- a mere 0.169 points away from matching Finland.

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Norway

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As the third happiest country in the world, Norway scored a total of 7.554 out of the possible ten.

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Iceland

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Iceland ranks as the fourth happiest country in the entire world, with a grand total rank of 7.494 out of ten.

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The Netherlands

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The Netherlands is the fifth and final of the top five happiest countries in the world. The Netherlands has an overall ranking of 7.488.

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Happiest Countries In The World by Population 2019

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	rank	score	population
Australia	11	7.228	25,203,198
United Kingdom	15	7.054	67,530,172
United States	19	6.892	329,064,917

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Japan btw ranks 58th.Now I would include income inequality as a factor, something that unchecked capitalism increases, as the unspoken goal of unchecked capitalism is to create the fewest possible rich people and the most possible poor people and nobody in between.This is what is behind income inequality. You probably mean the drop in reproductive rate, the population is still increasing because births/incoming still greater than deaths/departures.This gives a time delay until births/incoming = deaths/departures. Especially when we add climate change and the loss of human habitats.Population distribution is more the issue than population levels.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : ..Edited by RAZD, : ...

This post by AZPaul Message 62 was part of an off-topic discussion on the thread about how white skin and blue eyes evolved. It's a statement of the liberal or leftist point of view so I figure it fits here pretty well. So OK let's say your heart is in the right place. But what about your analysis of the situation?What's wrong with what Trump has done for the poor? Including blacks and Hispanics. I forget how many million, three, seven, eight? have gone off unemployement and food stamps and got jobs thanks to his policies, such as cutting taxes. Isn't that good for the poor? It's also good for the country.If you take money from the multi millionairs and the billionaires, by whatever means, they are just going to leave the country and take their jobs with them. What good is that going to do for anybody? And besides, the confiscatory taxes are then going to fall on the middle class who can't afford them. Small businesses won't be able to keep employees and may even go out of business. People won't be able to pay their mortgages and may lose their homes. So we'll be adding to the poor classes, maybe even to the tent cities. Eliminate the middle class and get back to the third world formula of rich and poor and nothing in between. That's what those policies would do. And they wouldn't help the poor you want to help, except maybe in the very first round when some money would be available.Hey and then the farmers will go and we'll all be standing in the proverbial bread lines for the last loaf of moldy bread.Also I just had a conversation about this with another conservative who said when taxes are cut as Trump has done it even benefits the government, they get MORE tax money because the economy improves so much that even a lower rate of taxation brings in more money. So there's more money for all the entitlement programs too. He said this was the case under Kennedy and Reagan and Bush and now Trump when they cut taxes. So why is the Left trying to change policies to something that is only going to grow the number of poor and wreck the economy? Capitalism is the reason America became so enormously prosperous that it was said even our poor classes were richer than any poor classes anywhere else.So here comes all the Leftist propaganda pretending to be facts.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

That's the old trickle down fantasy. No tax cut has ever paid for itself, including Trump’s. Instead it had zero effect on job growth and exploded the Federal deficit to almost a trillion dollars per year. That's the deficit Trump promised he would eliminate.I know I'm wasting my time pointing out reality to you. But I couldn't let that whopper go

OK I find it hard to keep all this clearly in mind but there is something called "baseline budgeting" which has something to do with a Congreswsional Rule that goes back to the seventies that automatically adds to their entitlement programs some percentage every year so that that part of the budge keeps automatically growing and is guarded by the Democrat bulldogs so that there is essentially no way to cut any of that, and it amounts to something like 70% of the budget. That's the main cause of the huge deficit and woe be to any conservative who tries to cut it. But if they increase the military budget at all, which is about 20% pof the total, they get blamed for the whole huge deficit. So Trump might like to cut the budge but in reality it isn't possible, and since he wants a strong military it's going to keep growing no matter what he might prefer to cut.The other thing is that it is a fact that those millions are off unemployment and food stamps and have jobs, which can't be explained by anything but the tax cuts which stimiulated the economy so that there are more jobs, and apparently trickle-down really does work. I know you don't want to believe it but Obama had all those millions on food stamps and Trump got them off and put them to work.I know the Left doesn't want you to think so because that ideology benefits the governing class at the expense of evyerbody else. Buying into all that is a big mistake.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

ringo always tells me that ganging up on the rich won't work and that Jesus commands us to give to the least of these no matter what...thus the middle class will get poorer so the poor can get fed. Which then leaves us with a few very wealthy people and everyone else lumped in one group. Which I disagree with.Apparently he thinks that if I have enough of a nest egg to retire on, (which does not make me wealthy, by the way) I am as bad as the rich young ruler and that scripture clearly tells *all of us* to give everything we have. Which I'm not sure I like. There is a fine line between having too much and having enough.

Nothing approaches even 50% of the total budget. The only thing that takes nearly 50% of the discretionary spending budget is the military. Nothing else is larger. The distribution doesn't change a lot from year to year.

I think what she means is health 28%+Social Security 25.3% which combined equal 53.3%, as if we even should be allowed to mess with those! They better not touch either one of them or they will awaken an angry sleeping giant within the US middle class.

Lumping everything together hides some important facts.I took this graphic of the 2018 Federal Budbget from the Wikipedia page, United States Federal Budget: So we have mandatory spending and discretionary spending as you kind of broke out with your second graphic. From mine we have these groupings: But where are the revenues coming from that pay for that? This is the part the gets obscured: So any discussion of the deficit requires that we define specifically where the deficit comes from, namely what specific revenues and specific outlays go into calculating the deficit. That must be known in order to figure out which factors cause the deficit and therefore which factors could be adjusted to reduce or eliminate the deficit.Both Social Security and Medicare Part A (Parts B, C, & D are insurance programs, two of them private insurance, funded by premiums paid by recipients) are funded by payroll taxes levied specially for them and which cannot be used for any other purpose. As such, they cannot and do no play any part in the deficit. Since they are not factors contributing to the deficit, adjusting them would have no effect on the deficit.Also, these figures are for the 2018 Budget. We need to see the figures for the 2019 Budget, which I believe was the first one based on the GOP's tax scam and which greatly increased defense spending from $623 billion to something like $800 billion (as I recall). And when we crunch those numbers, we will need to keep straight where specific sources of revenue are going (eg, payroll taxes going to Social Security and to Medicare A).Also keep in mind that Fiscal Year 2019 ended a couple weeks ago and that we are currently in FY 2020 and hence under the 2020 Budget.

I'm not sure which parts are untouchable but what I heard was that it amounts to about 70% of the budget and has an automatic yearly increase so that even if nothing at all was added in a given year the deficit would keep growing anyway.

No one cares what you "heard". Provide data and sources. What you heard is irrelevant and when what you herd is looked at it is usually shown to be incorrect or extremely misleading.
So how about providing actual figures and sources?

She is talking about the deficit Phat; and Social Security and Medicare do NOT, by law and reality, contribute to the deficit.Reality Phat, not fantasies.Both Social Security and Medicare can only dispense moneys that are already in their Trusts. They cannot, by law, run as a deficit.BUT, those Trusts are a desirable target that the Wealthy would love to raid to pay for their special privileges.

Very simple solution: Don't read my postsw.

There are different ways of looking at the numbers, but I think the total cost of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and miscellaneous other welfare programs represents about 48% of government spending. Here's a chart I found at US Government Entitlement Spending History with Charts - a www.usgovernmentspending.com briefing: --PercyEdited by Percy, : Improve clarity.