Combat Ranting (formerly known as Famicom Mini)

[A Black Falcon]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Yeah, right. If SSI is still around when I turn 65 (or whatever retirement age ends up being) I will personally give you my first check.

It will be. There well might be more restrictions (especially on age), but it will be.

I find it personally sad that I have to handle my own finances in addition to those of people who are too capricious or stupid to do it themselves. That offends me. When the Founding Fathers drew up the Constitution, I think the idea was that people should be self-sufficient, not that the Government should protect you from your own stupidity. In fact, I have a hunch that they wanted exactly to avoid that from happening.

The Founding Fathers were suspicious of the people and did what they could to keep the general public from having too much power in our government... remember things like the Senate being elected by the House of Representatives, or the President being elected by the Electoral College?

As for self-sufficiency I don't know what they would think. Political realities have changed so dramatically... back then it was very liberal to want to just give everyone the right to vote... we have advanced from there so of course the target moves. We have voting, more services are the clear place to go from there...

I don't think it's 'good enough'. I just have very different ideas on how the situation can improve itself.

Yes, by making sure that no one ever has any kind of chance of getting out of poverty, thus preserving our system where the top 5% of the population have 47% of the wealth.

And as for poverty... yes in other places poor people are more destitute than here. But it is a major mistake to say that because they can manage to put food on the table, usually, and pay the bills -- sometimes -- they aren't poor. They are. When you need two or three jobs just to barely keep your house, and need to choose between the power and having enough (barely) to eat... and have to go to work as soon as you can, no way could you ever go to college no matter how smart you are... that is a problem and something we should do more to help.

Oh yeah, and you didn't factor in relative costs. It costs a LOT more to live in America than some extremely poor part of Africa! You need to make $28,000 to be above the poverty line here and that's not nearly enough to actually live. In some places $100 a month is more than enough to live by what in that nation are decent standards... we need to remember relativism here. For trade too -- saying that everyone needs to meet our minimum wage laws would be idiotic. We need to look at what is a reasonable minimum wage for that society and say that for that country we won't let them trade with us unless they meet it (and actually enforce it, which is the bigger challenge)...

I never believed for a moment Hillary would run this year. Bush is far too tough an opponent, and staging a campaign would be a waste of time, much like Gore's. 2008 will unfortunately be different. I hope the Republicans shore up a worthy opponent.

The Clintonites like Clark because he's an idiot who is easily manipulated. He's so spineless that his position on the war changes depending on the temperature outside. He has no platform, nor does he have a goal. He's a joke of a candidate and his only purpose is to check Dean. Because, while the former Deciever-In-Chief played the centrist to get the sheeple to vote him in, Hillary Clinton is as dangerously liberal as one can get, she doesn't play the centrist nearly as well, and it's HER campaign being prepared.

The nice thing, though, is watching the Democrats destroy themselves with all this infighting. It would be funny if... well, it is funny. I can only hope the damage will be long in repairing.

First, Bush is far more vulnerable than you say.

Second, you're right that Clark doesn't make a very convincing Democrat... he seems to be more liberal than most military types for sure (he voted for Clinton and Gore), but a true liberal, like he is saying in his speeches? I don't really believe it.

Still, he has a very good point that we should never have gone into Iraq while the major issue of Afghanistan should have been our focus.

And third, campaigns are often bloody but usually they make peace in the end... I'm sure they will, because beating Bush is the most important thing here.