Subject:
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Re: How many things need to stack up before we throw this jerk out?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 16 Jul 2003 22:42:29 GMT
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Viewed:
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467 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Mike Petrucelli wrote:
>
> > Nothing, however for the 1 person like her there are 100 that are just
> > leaching off the system.
>
> I dispute that statistic as non-representative of reality. Do you have a
> citation? Alternatively, if you're just making a rhetorical specultion,
> that's fine, but you need to disclaim it as such.
Mostly that statement was based from a women I used to work with who grew up in
North Philadelphia and basicly told me as much. She litterally told me that they
should just drop a bomb on the whole area because most of them (her relatives
included) spent more effort staying on welfare than trying to get a real job.
She told me they were all parasites. Of course dumbfounded by that, I asked
about whether or not they could actually get out of the situation if they wanted
to. She said yes but the operative phrase being "if they wanted to."
>
> And again, let's distinguish Federal assistance for the impoverished from
> Federal-take-all-you-want grants for corporations and the super-wealthy. I
> really don't care if 1000 lazy jerks each get $500.00 in Federal aid each
> month, because Halliburton (for example) receives a $500,000,000
> friend-of-the-VP contract without even bidding for it. You seem to be
> complaining about the nickels and dimes, while well-positioned corporations
> are sucking billions out of the system.
Yeah like McDonalds 500 billion tax break for promoting Big Macs in Russia
several years ago. I agree that we should eliminate "corperate welfare" before
going after the "nickel and dime" leeches.
>
> > I read an article in the paper a few years ago about a different aunt, how
> > she was so bad off and she couldn't feed her kids and they gave her close to
> > $500 in groceries. All the while oblivious to the fact that she collects
> > over $3000 a month just from child support, rent, and alimony without even
> > working! To top it all off she is the one that is the alcoholic and was
> > cheating on her husband. She is lazy.
>
> I can't speculate about family politics, but even if the newspaper-aunt
> recieved $10K per month in child support and alimony, how do either of those
> payments affect Federal aid programs? You don't mention whether she recieves
> such aid, nor do you specify whether her rent is paid to a private
> landlord/leasing company or to a government-assisted living.
She doesn't pay rent she collects it.
> Even if she lives in "the projects," there's a good chance that it's
> state-funded rather than Federal; in that case, she's really irrelevant to the
> issue that you and I are discussing.
Yeah I guess not. I still find that newspaper article infuriating though
especially when there probably was someone who really could have used that
assistance.
> > Well the original source was one of Walter E. Williams columns
> > I am fairly certain we can trust his credentials and assume the fact was
> > legitimate.
>
> I'm afraid that I'm not willing to take his correctness on faith. I'm not
> summarily dismissing him as biased (because I'm conscious of my silent
> audience!), but I note with interest that he displays a serious >misunderstanding in this article that you cite:
> http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=wwi
>
> Specifically, this bit:
> > When we had warm winters and oppressively hot and dry summers, one could
> > hardly turn on the television without hearing some politician or reporter
> > whining about global warming and our need to sign the Kyoto agreement.
> > Winter 2002-2003 saw extreme cold conditions. In the Midwest, the daily
> > temperature was 4 degrees Fahrenheit cooler relative to the 10-year average,
> > the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic roughly 3 degrees cooler. I wonder why
> > reporters aren't tracking down Bill Clinton, Al Gore and the environmental
> > wacko brigade to query them about global warming this winter and spring.
>
> That's a fine demonstration of fallacious reasoning by anecdotal evidence,
> not to mention a smug dismissal of the overwhelming majority of scientists who
> agree that the planet is warming (though I grant that there is disagreement
> about the *cause* of the warming). To write them off as a "wacko brigade"
> reveals that Williams has at least one kind of deep-rooted bias.
Well they are all full of it. 30 years ago most scientists thought we were going
into an ice age. According to a rather fascinating PBS special I saw about 2
years ago; scientists took ice core samples from the arctic and antarctic
regions and were able to track the overall wheather patterns of the planet going
back about 10,000 years. Over the past 10,000 years average global temperature
swings of 20 degrees are not uncommon from one year to the next, let alone over
many years. From this one can conclude it is impossible to distiguish between
the current theroy of "global warming" and normal planetary climate swings.
>
> It's also interesting that he refers to Fox News, the Drudge Report, and Talk
> Radio as "alternative news sources." Alternative to what? And why doesn't
> he include a single left-leaning or centrist news source? It seems clear that
> he's trying to paint right-wing media as some kind of disenfranchised,
> kept-down bastion of correctness, which is absurd in the extreme.
Well I didn't even catch that.
> I accept that you don't have access to the original "98%" quote, so let me
> phrase the question differently: Are you able to paraphrase
> (semi-accurately) what Williams calls the "Democrats definition of 'rich'" so
> that I can understand how this applies to 98% of Americans?
A family of 4 making over 60,000 or 70,000 is considered in the top 20% of the
income bracket. So one persom making over 30,000 or 35,000 is likewise
considered in the top 20%. Well 98% of Americans fit that definition for at
least one third of their life. (Usually the later one third of their life.)
-Mike Petrucelli
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