Who's the bigger offender: Conservatives or Liberals?

Phat writes: ar claims that the US *should* have helped rebuild Viet Nam and other places. Does he not realize that by lifting up the trading partners there would be direct competition for the American worker?

I can remember when people used to say that competition was a good thing.

Phat writes: Does anyone want the CCP running the planet?

The CCP or Trump? Are those the only alternatives you can think of?

Phat writes: One example of collectivism in action is selectively only giving stimulus checks to "each according to their need." This is a blatant example of in-group thinking and mandatory under a government of, by, and for the in-group.

That's crazy. The in-group is you.

Phat writes: As our wages go up in line with inflation, we will be accused of causing inflation by insisting on parity....

Here's another anecdote for you:

Once upon a time, the construction unions in Saskatchewan bargained with the Saskatchewan contractors' association. Because wages were significantly higher in neighboring Alberta, they demanded wage parity, claiming that skilled workers would leave Saskatchewan for higher wages in Alberta. After several years of this argument going back and forth, they finally got wage parity.

Five minutes later, the Alberta construction unions demanded a raise from the Alberta contractors' association, claiming that the cost of living was higher in Alberta, so they needed higher wages than Saskatchewan.

Guess what happened when they got their raise.

Phat writes: The question is "which people"? ALL of them? (Globalism writ LARGE)

Pop quiz: "Who said, "Go ye into all the world...?"

Is there nothing Jesus said that you won't spit on?

ringo writes: All governments collect taxes. Roads, schools, etc....

Its the etceera that needs to be discussed.

I am FOR using taxes on Social Security. Medicare and Medicaid. Technology and research. I am in favor of helping our citizens first--before helping other countries. I am in favor of spreading the wealth equally among the people rather than helping Blacks, Indians, and other marginalized groups. They will simply waste the money.

I am NOT in favor of overseas investments. The US today hardly has the resources that the US of the Marshall Plan era had. We also have far too much debt.

I am in favor of smart military spending to keep us equipped with the latest effective technological advantages...in the event of a war. I am not in favor of feeding a military-industrial complex. This only helps the rich.

And I am NOT in favor of the US Middle Class helping to rebuild countries who are against our beliefs. What good does that do?

ringo writes: Is there nothing Jesus said that you won't spit on?

Well...you seem to think that we are ALL charged to give everything away. And yet you exempt yourself. You side with a mandatory government mandate yet choose to ignore the stuff you quote from scripture to me. You do not understand nor believe in original sin or the fact that humans without Jesus will welcome the antichrist. Satan made the platform sound altruistic and attractive after all.

Phat writes: Its the etceera that needs to be discussed.

It really isn't. That's your fundamental mistake. Every argument you make against the "etcetera" is also an argument against the roads and schools.

Phat writes: I am FOR using taxes on Social Security. Medicare and Medicaid. Technology and research.

But you're not the dictator. You don't get to decide all by yourself. You don't get to build a road from your house to Safeway and to hell with everybody else.

Phat writes: I am in favor of helping our citizens first--before helping other countries.

You're really not, though, are you? You're in favor if helping yourself and to hell with the homeless.

Phat writes: I am in favor of spreading the wealth equally among the people rather than helping Blacks, Indians, and other marginalized groups.

I thought the Blacks and Indians were people too. You're clearly NOT in favor of "spreading the wealth equally". You're in favor of grabbing as much as you can for yourself - and you're oblivious to the fact that the rich are grabbing from you as well as from the Blacks, Indians and other non-people.

Phat writes: They will simply waste the money.

I can't decide whether that statement is more hatreful or more stupid.

Phat writes: I am NOT in favor of overseas investments.

Somebody else has already pointed out that without overseas investment, you would have nothing to stock your shelves. Somebody is investing overseas. What's so bad about the US reaping some of the benefits from overseas investments?

Phat writes: And I am NOT in favor of the US Middle Class helping to rebuild countries who are against our beliefs. What good does that do?

Money in your pocket. Haven't you heard that money has no morals and no politics?

Phat writes: Well...you seem to think that we are ALL charged to give everything away.

The disciples also thought so. The lady with two mites thought so. The early Church thought so. The lady who fed Elijah thought so.

Phat writes: You side with a mandatory government mandate...

Stop lying. I have told you many, many times that I do NOT advocate any such thing.

Phat writes: ... humans without Jesus will welcome the antichrist

And yet YOU are the one who denies everything Jesus said. YOU are the antiChrist.

The question is "which people"? ALL of them? (Globalism writ LARGE)

If you have a point, then it is not clear what that point is.

There are already differences between culture in the south, culture in the northeast, culture in California. Nobody is forcing a common culture.

I am NOT referring to the conspiracy theory.

Okay, so you have told us something that cultural Marxism isn't. But you still have not said what it is. You just respond in an evasive manner.

It is pretty obvious that you don't know what cultural Marxism is (or that it isn't actually anything at all).

And yet you belong to the evangelical Christian collective and you regularly vote for the Republican collective.

Not true. I voted for Biden over Trump in the last election, though I now regret it.

What's not true? That you regret voting for Biden only confirms that you regularly vote Republican.

In any case, my point was that you criticize collectivism, but you obviously do not understand what it is.

According to the subtitle, you are worried about government control. Yet you are fully under control of the right wing propaganda network. They tell you to fear "cultural Marxism", so you fear it without even bothering to find out what it is. They tell you to fear collectivism, so you fear it without understanding what it is. You are a captive of the propagandists, because you don't think for yourself. If they tell you to jump, you jump. If they tell you to be afraid, you are afraid.

Even if government tried to control you, they could not do it nearly as effectively as the right wing propaganda controls you.

I am in favor of spreading the wealth equally among the people rather than helping Blacks, Indians, and other marginalized groups. They will simply waste the money.

Ouch!

Where does this come from? How can one human be so callus to think helping other humans in need is a waste of money? You people are sick.

Phat, you’re making me not want to be on this planet any more. That’s gonna happen soon enough but stop trying to push me off. Get some humanity. Don't they teach you that in church?

nwr writes: Okay, so you have told us something that cultural Marxism isn't. But you still have not said what it is. You just respond in an evasive manner.

I'm not being intentionally evasive. Im just off on other rabbit trails.

nwr writes: It is pretty obvious that you don't know what cultural Marxism is (or that it isn't actually anything at all).

It is a policy or policies which go against traditional Christian values. What is cultural Marxism?

quote:

---

In short, cultural Marxism is a revolutionary leftist idea that traditional culture is the source of oppression in the modern world. Cultural Marxism is often linked to an insistence upon political correctness, multiculturalism, and perpetual attacks on the foundations of culture: the nuclear family, marriage, patriotism, traditional morality, law and order, etc. Cultural Marxists are assumed to be committed to establishing economic Marxism, in which case their cultural attacks are a necessary preparation for their ultimate goal. (...)The result of these ideas was the Frankfurt School, a generic term for Marxist philosophy focused on social criticism and bottom-up change. In particular, the Frankfurt School rejected the idea of absolute truth and promoted aggressive criticism of all aspects of life and society. (...) In actual practice, cultural Marxism is often used as a derogatory term for various left-leaning, progressive, or liberal practices. Unfortunately, various conspiracy theorists and anti-Semitic groups also use the term cultural Marxism to promote their belief in the Illuminati or to blame the Jews for society’s ills. Such misuses of the term do not negate the existence of an intellectual movement to destabilize society from within. (...)For instance, derogatory attitudes toward men, whites, Christians, fathers, heterosexuals, and so forth are often celebrated or encouraged. Equally critical comments directed at women, minorities, Muslims, mothers, homosexuals, and so forth are readily condemned as “hateful.” Whether or not cultural Marxism is behind this imbalance, many people do seem purposefully prejudiced against certain points of view.

For Christians, dealing with cultural Marxism involves a spiritual dimension. It is undeniable that, in the West, Christian values are under attack. However, the root cause of these attacks is not wholly political or racial or social. It is spiritual.

---

What's not true? That you regret voting for Biden only confirms that you regularly vote Republican.

For the record, I voted twice for Obama. Before that I voted for Reagan and Bush(both of them) In retrospect, Bill Clinton was a better fiscal president than the Republicans in general.

In any case, my point was that you criticize collectivism, but you obviously do not understand what it is. According to the subtitle, you are worried about government control. Yet you are fully under the control of the right-wing propaganda network. They tell you to fear "cultural Marxism", so you fear it without even bothering to find out what it is. They tell you to fear collectivism, so you fear it without understanding what it is. You are a captive of the propagandists, because you don't think for yourself. If they tell you to jump, you jump. If they tell you to be afraid, you are afraid. Even if the government tried to control you, they could not do it nearly as effectively as the right-wing propaganda controls you.

I DO know that much of this so-called propaganda that I digest has some truth to it. And I am smart enough to differentiate between truth and lies.

AZ writes: Where does this come from? How can one human be so callous to think helping other humans in need is a waste of money?

Perhaps I need to elaborate. What I mean is that aid to the people should not target only certain groups. Aid should be for ALL of us. One example of a failed liberal attempt at reparations from the past was Affirmative Action. (A form of reverse discrimination) I don't want to see the same mistake repeated by giving stimulus and aid ONLY to minorities. I am not callous...just in favor of equality. Particularly since only SOME of us pay any real taxes. We should benefit from our collective largesse and not have a government mandate where the stimulus should go.

Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Phat writes: One example of a failed liberal attempt at reparations from the past was Affirmative Action.

In what sick fantasy world was affirmative action a failure or reverse dicscrimination?

Affirmative Action, though overall a success, punished qualified employees in order to meet quotas for hiring minorities. This was a form of reverse discrimination.

How did it punish qualified employees Phat?

And do you have any concept of what Christianity requires of us when it comes to our manifold sins and inequities?

Basics Phat.

Just saying 'Too bad ... but I it's not MY fault' is not enough. We are required to attempt to make amends.

Affirmative action NEVER punished a qualified employee, but it did give a chance to tens of thousands of people who had been denied any opportunities for education or a job or housing.

That is not reverse discrimination.

punished qualified employees in order to meet quotas

Name one.

You didn't take another stab at this, I have a few minutes to spare right now, so I'll address your post.

Phat writes: Disclaimer: Though I was on a great Lo-Carb Diet for close to all of November, I relapsed and had some bad carbs with high sugar the past 2 days...

You are hopeless. You remind me of the emphysema patients you sometimes see with an oxygen tube in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

1)Jar claims that the US *should* have helped rebuild Viet Nam and other places.

Vietnam is one word.

So to you installing a fiat government and tearing the country apart with years of war and death is okay, but helping them rebuild is not.

Does he not realize that by lifting up the trading partners there would be direct competition for the American worker?

You're confusing two completely different time periods. Jar was talking about helping rebuild Vietnam after the end of the war. It was a couple decades later before we began trading with Vietnam.

And the sad fact is, we cannot compete.

That their labor and material costs are lower than ours has nothing to do with whether it was right to a) interfere in their internal politics; b) force years of war upon them; and c) leave them to pick up the pieces after we admitted defeat having discovered that their desire for self-determination exceeded the ability of our military might to thwart it.

Jar's points in Message 367 were in two separate paragraphs and were about two completely different time periods. The first paragraph was about the Vietnam war where we destroyed the country and then provided no help in rebuilding it. The second paragraph noted that some of the products on your grocery store shelves come from the countries with lower costs that you're complaining about. Since you're hyper-worried about inflation, note that producing those products domestically would cause the prices in your grocery store to inflate.

Their work ethic and willingness to work harder for less would have beaten our own native populists and uneducated workers domestically. It is not mainly the altruism that I am opposed to. It is the lack of similar concern for our own first.

Nothing Jar said reflected a lack of concern for domestic workers. He didn't even comment on the topic in that message. When he has commented he has said the opposite.

You're opposed to the government doing good? Do you really favor a government that does no good? No public transportation? No highways? No public education? No farm bureau? No FDA to mandate iodine in our salt and vitamin D in our milk? No public health to make sure children are vaccinated and to handle epidemics and pandemics? The list of the good that government does is endless. That's one of the important reasons government exists, to provide for the public good. Of course I'm not opposed to the FDA, the CDP, and other agencies that regulate public health and safety.

You're hopelessly unaware of your own contradictions, inconsistencies, confusions and lack of comprehension.

I'm opposed to mandatory control and implementation of taxes beyond domestic needs.

Since federal income taxes are mandatory, isn't everything you pay taxes for mandatory, whether or not it's altruistic? Aren't you mandated to pay your share of every single item in the federal budget? If you object to anything mandatory then isn't everything in the federal budget objectionable to you?

This point has been made by different people in different ways, but you're not getting it. For the most part you're not even acknowledging that people are finding fatal flaws in your position. You just continue merrily on repeating the same errors. We must all be crazy to keep explaining the same stuff to you while you repeatedly don't get it.

Jar himself mentions that *we* should have helped Viet Nam...and no doubt Iraq and Afghanistan, though the governments in place there are still hostile to American foreign policy.

Again, Vietnam, one word.

Vietnam and the US normalized relationships a quarter century ago. Looking it up, Vietnam is currently our 10th largest trading partner at $90 billion per year. Vietnam is not "still hostile to American foreign policy." So you're wrong.

According to the State Department, "The United States maintains vigorous and broad engagement with Iraq on diplomatic, political, economic, and security issues..." Iraq is not "still hostile to American foreign policy." So you're wrong again, unless perhaps you meant to say Iran.

The US/Afghanistan relationship is still in flux - what the Taliban will do and whether they'll abide by any agreements is anyone's guess.

China is taking over. Does anyone want the CCP running the planet? (The anti-Christian CCP, I might add)

Where is this coming from? Why did you say this? Do even you know?

A country's influence is a function of its economic and military power. China will have the world's largest economy by the early 2030's. China's military is the world's largest in terms of personnel, and one of the world's top three most powerful at least. We don't have any say in China's growing economic and military power. They're going to pass us whether we like it or not.

Wiki writes: Collectivism is a value that is characterized by an emphasis on cohesiveness among individuals and prioritization of the group over the self. Individuals or groups that subscribe to a collectivist worldview tend to find common values and goals as particularly salient[1] and demonstrate greater orientation toward in-group than toward out-group.[2] The term "in-group" is thought to be more diffusely defined for collectivist individuals to include societal units ranging from the nuclear family to a religious or racial/ethnic group.

Nothing in your Wikipedia description of collectivism describes liberalism. The word "liberal" does not appear in the article, nor does any related word. Collectivism and liberalism are not synonyms: they have different meanings and refer to different things.

You've been told this many times, yet your answer is always to just say it again. What is wrong with you?

One example of collectivism in action is selectively only giving stimulus checks to "each according to their need." This is a blatant example of in-group thinking and mandatory under a government of, by, and for the in-group.

Unbelievable! You can't even remember last year. Both the first and second round of stimulus checks started going out under Trump - he signed both bills. Now Trump and the Republicans are collectivists, too? Who's left that's not a collectivist? (The third round was Biden's.)

The stimulus checks were not tailored to "each according to their need," which is communisim, by the way, not collectivism, as you would have been reminded had you read further in the Wikipedia article (Collectivism: Anarcho-collectivism). The stimulus payments had income limits, for example $99,000 ($198,000 married) for the first round with a gradual phase out. How is this collectivism?

Our progressive income tax rates are based on income, too. If you have an adjusted gross income of $10,000 then you're in the 10% bracket, while if $150,000 you're in the 24% tax bracket. Is the income tax collectivism to you?

And if you make too much money in retirement then your Medicare payments go up. This year most people on Medicare pay $148.50 per month, but married couples earning more than $182,000 per year pay $238 per month. If they earn more than $750,000 per year they pay $578 per month. Do these graduated income adjusted Medicare payments seem like collectivism to you?

If you want examples of government payments based on need then look to unemployment insurance, welfare, Medicaid and student aid. Do these seem like collectivism to you?

The questions I keep asking you are rhetorical, of course. They're an expression of my incredulity that you could be such a lunkhead, and an ostentatiously voluble one at that, on all this stuff. You have no apparent fear that what you're about to say might be incredibly ignorant, despite a host of people telling you that you've been saying incredibly ignorant things for a while now.

The only part of collectivism that I favor is the collective bargaining of a labor union.

I hope you're joking. A labor union is not collectivism.

As our wages go up in line with inflation, we will be accused of causing inflation by insisting on parity rather than biting the bullet and accepting less. Which is another reason I abhor anarchy. They steal theirs.

Yet another off-the-wall comment. I'll pass on this one.

Please try to understand this before replying.

--Percy

Edited by Percy, : Typos; improve clarity of short clause.

Thats a recent one.

Perhaps a more famous one is this: