Almalieque wrote:
So it's not because of the government, but because charity with government creates the entitlement problem?
Um. Yeah. What part of what I wrote is confusing to you. Government does several things very well. It's good at creating and enforcing laws. It's good at maintaining a military and police forces to protect us. It's good at negotiating treaties with other governments. What it's not good at? Charity. I thought I was quite clear about this.
Quote:
The government can create as many stipulations as necessary to assist the ones willing to succeed. I can't think of a single concern that you might have (outside of the funding source) that can't be severely altered through some form of reform.
Except that when government runs charities, it does not do this. It has *never* done this. You can sit at your keyboard and insist that it "could" do so, but absent (as I said earlier) such massive reform as to make the distinction you seem to be making here irrelevant, this isn't going to happen. Government does not make distinctions as to *why* you are poor. It merely looks at need and fills it. And it does this based on pre-established rules that can't be adjusted on a case by case basis at all. A private charity can kick someone out if they're high, or dealing drugs, or otherwise engaged in behaviors that will perpetuate their need. Government cannot.
That's why government sucks at charity. If you simply give people stuff when they are poor, you remove the disincentives to making poor choices. And in all the decades I've watched politicians talk about welfare reform, they have still not addressed (nor come remotely close to addressing) that fundamental problem. We can certainly reform welfare to make it a bit less bad, but it's still ultimately bad. And the core problem is that those who support welfare spending don't actually seem to think that this is a problem. How can I expect any sort of actual useful welfare reform can ever occur when people like you insist that welfare isn't a problem, that it does not contribute to poverty at all. Heck. You spent pages arguing against the idea that it creates an opportunity cost for success. How on earth can I trust that you'd support changes to remove an effect that you don't even think exists?
Could they reform it to address my concerns? Maybe. Will they? Not as long as the mere mention of reform is attacked so vehemently by people who've become convinced that welfare must be maintained or the poor (who are disproportionately black and latino, so this automatically gets a racial connotation) will suffer. When people get called racists just for saying that welfare is a problem, it's hard for me to accept that we can actually "reform" the system. I have to first get you to even acknowledge that it's a problem. And you've so far steadfastly refused to do even this.
Alma wrote:
Gbaji wrote:
I want you to name specific Democratic party positions and/or actions and then tell me why blacks might vote for the Democrats because of that position or action.
You want me to argue why blacks vote for/should vote for/ is ok to vote for specific policies without you actually acknowledging that blacks vote for specific policies.
No. I want you to do what I actually asked you to do. I'm not disagreeing with you that blacks vote for specific policies. I'm asking you to explain *why* they do that. In a manner that isn't in the form of "because the GOP is bad...". I've asked this like 10 times so far in this thread, and you still haven't done this.
Even when I followed your "what we oppose rather than what we support" list, you failed to follow through. When I asked you why blacks oppose charter schools (or private schools in general), you dodged the question. When I asked what about the VRA was "gutted" and why you thought it was so important an issue relative to so many others, you dodged that to, just falling back on repeating the original claim "The GOP gutted the VRA", despite me pointing out that the Supreme Court ruled on it, not the GOP. The legal changes didn't "gut" the VRA at all. Same deal when you talked about immigration. I asked you why a GOP position on something that doesn't actually affect blacks at all should resonate so strongly that you'd list it as a position that blacks would use to determine which party to support. In response, I got... nothing.
You have your "laundry list" of things that blacks care about and use to decide which party to vote for. But once we get past the labels of those things and ask "why do blacks care about this, and why is one position on this issue so much better than another for them", you basically sputter out, fail to provide an answer, and then quickly change the subject. When you ask why I keep saying that many black voters do this because they've been told to and aren't bothering to ask if they're really "good for blacks", this is part of why. If you can't tell me why opposing private schools is a position that blacks should hold, then what am I to think about you holding that position so strongly? You've leaving me no option but to assume you've just been given a list of positions you should hold, and told that your a "bad black person" (Uncle Tom) if you don't, and you never challenged that.
Can you tell me why you personally hold various political positions then? Maybe we're just getting off track talking about "black people", and should just start with one.
Quote:
Regardless, my very next reference to the VRA was "The VRA was put in place as a protection mechanism. Black people care about the VRA regardless who is talking about it.
What does that even mean though? "Blacks care about the VRA"? Care about what? What aspects of the VRA? What parts? Why? Do you even get that this is such a vague statement as to be meaningless?
Alma wrote:
gbaji wrote:
But hey. Prove me wrong if you can. Just tell me reasons why black people should vote for Democrats that isn't in a "against something the GOP does" format. That would at least be a starting point.
You focused on the word "example" as opposed to the bigger point that the word "Uncle Tom" literally contradicts your claim that black people don't think about what policies are good for them.
Huh? Your response didn't address the statement I made that you quoted. WTF? I'm asking you a question. Why not just answer it?
Edited, May 13th 2015 5:52pm by gbaji