Combat Ranting (formerly known as Famicom Mini)

[A Black Falcon]

As for your other thing, why do you actually EXPECT me to have pride in things I have nothing at all to do with anyway? I don't work for Nintendo, nor Sega, nor Blizzard, so why on Earth should I have pride in them? I never even met them! I'm completely unassociated! It would be like having pride in an ant colony in Europe somewhere just because someone told me they did a bang-up job against the rival ants next door. Same thing with sports are about like that, but hey, you don't seem to be getting mad at me for not taking pride in the local YuGiOh champion. I just don't care about either one (actually, I do play Yugioh, but that's neither here nor there).

I still can't figure out how you justify that those things are different... You don't work for Blizzard or Nintendo? So? You probably don't work for the US Government either!

Because he wasn't really a centrist, he pretended to be to cow the sheeple vote. And it worked. That horrendous attempt to communize health-care wasn't very centrist at all. Thank God it was defeated.

Except for the health care thing, he was as centrist as you get. His whole thing was these "New Democrats" that would aim more towards the middle... he clearly still thinks that way which is why Clark's campaign has gotten the most support of the group from ex-Clintonites, I'd say.

So defeatist. You're then saying that they shouldn't bother, should not even be encouraged and helped to try. They should just become little piglets sucking on the welfare tit for everything they need, at my expense. Since not everyone will succeed, they should just give up and let Big Brother provide everything. The rest of us have the obligation to pay for all that.

Defeatist? No, realistic. Proven by looking at the last five thousand years of human experience.

In those times there were practically no investment opportunities, and people hardly knew about what little there was. That is not the case today by any means, thus, your argument is invalid.

True we have more opportunities for investing now, but no way in the world would I think that everyone would actually save enough money so that they could pay for all these things when they retire! Many would just spend it... we need the government to be there to keep people from wasting their future. And anyway the government can do this stuff better than individuals can.

Your second point shows exactly why it's a bad idea, and why the first point exists: The program is over-extended, created in a much different time. It was created in a time where people would collect benefits at age 65 and be dead in little more than five years. Now, people are living into the late eighties and early nineties, almost thirty years of collecting. The minimum age, for starters, needs to be raised by five, preferably ten years. Second, the program should be optional. Participation in SSI should not be forced. If people want the option of investing their own money, it should be provided. Those who wish to continue paying for SSI can do that as well, and many people will because investment isn't for everyone. But the system, like so many other liberal ideas, was much better in concept than in execution.

Hmm... raise the minimum age... that's been discussed. Lobbyists for old people have killed it so far, but it'll keep coming back because you are right, when SSI was created people died a whole lot younger... the age will probably have to be raised in the future, to help Medicare from not going bankrupt. Optional? You mean Bush's 2000 campaign idea to get people to leave government care and go to HMOs? The problem here is that no HMO wants to insure old people. Unless the goverment forces them, via laws, no sane HMO will ever pay for elderly care... that's why Medicare is there, and that's one reason it's so important (and should be spread to the uninsured too. Having people in this country with no health insurance is unacceptable.)... and as for having people put their money into non-SSI retirement accounts, go ahead with other money but leave SSI as it is. It's an important piece and if we put one hole in it the whole thing might blow up (much to the delight of people like you who detest the idea of your money actually helping people).

First off, I don't get why you'd suddenly bring up those two unrelated groups out of nowhere ABF. Second off, what's with the "you just don't care" attitude targetting me specifically? I already explained the reality there, that businesses come and go all the time even WITHOUT a big name company. Why should I care WHO drove business away from some small business? Seriously, should I ALSO hate the small business that provides cheaper goods (for instance, a 99 cent store driving a dollar store out of business) that ends up making the other one fail? It's the EXACT SAME THING EXACTLY THE SAME! NO DIFFERENCE! Scale is irrelevent.

If you don't understand now you never will, and I won't waste any more time re-explaining what I've already said.