The Common Man got a rebuttal for his article “Whatever Happened to My Party?” from a Left leaning detractor. As A Lady of Reason welcomes civil debate, I posted her comment in the comments in the article itself, but Dems are Dumb offered some counterarguments to her rebuttal. Here is Dems are Dumb’s rebuttal to her points… The original headings from the detractor have been preserved. Dems are Dumb does not address two points, so I chose to omit them. His rebuttals are in RED:
On accepting welfare as a substitute for education, training, and employment:
Have you been on welfare? I was for a brief period in the late 1990’s. Applying for, receiving, and keeping welfare is a full-time job. You have to show up with a list of every job you applied to, and the contact person so they can call to make sure you’re being honest. And they do. Our government does not offer low-cost job training, employment opportunities, or low-cost education via the welfare office. I thought welfare was only slightly harder than completing a Master’s thesis. (Interesting that the writer found a welfare application more difficult than a Master’s thesis. Considering that many people on welfare in the U.S. are functionally illiterate, one must question how challenging this commenter’s Master’s program was.) The cycle is, the person works 1-2 jobs at minimum wage and can’t afford to live. If the person has kids, it’s worse. They have to take sick days for their child, they have to have access to medical care, they have to pay for childcare before and or after school. They put their low paying job at risk because they do not have a lot of rights within the parameters of their job. They want to get a decent paying job, but education seems out of their reach. Maybe they can get financial aid, a pell grant, etc. Maybe even a scholarship, but what about food, housing, books, supplies, etc. They have to continue to work a lot of hours at the minimum wage job, letting their school work take a back seat, thus perhaps losing a scholarship due to harsh life situation. Student loans today are out of hand largely due to the sharp increase in college tuition. College is no longer a place where anyone can go. It is becoming more and more elite. (Doesn’t this contradict the earlier comment that a welfare application is more challenging than a Master’s thesis? Wouldn’t that seem to imply that the average welfare recipient is educated to the point of being capable of post graduate level work? If that’s the case, it would appear that economics have not been a bar to education. Another issue with the above paragraph is the commenter’s assumptions about minimum wage jobs. Most minimum wage job holders are teenagers and others with minimal job skills. One takes a minimum wage job to acquire basic job skills. As people gain experience and skills they generally progress to higher paying jobs. The economist Thomas Sowell and others have cited IRS figures that show those at the lowest level of income usually progress to a higher level within a decade and often reach the highest quintile (20% of income earners) during their earning career. Those who choose to start a family and raise children while they are still at the minimum wage level create problems for themselves because they did not build a stable economic situation before taking on that added responsibility. Sowell also points out that the poverty level for married couples with children is in the single digits. Given all that, I would suggest that someone who has earned a Master’s degree in some marketable field and has not been able to find work paying more than minimum wage and nevertheless chose to raise kids is a bit of an anomaly.)
I live in Norway now (moved here 4 years ago). We are a welfare state. Our unemployment benefits feature free job re-training into a new field of work if desired, or if necessary. Weekly job fairs that are easy to attend. All jobs here pay at least $20/hour, meaning that virtually no one can find themselves in a situation of not being able to live, making government welfare mostly only necessary to the disabled (intellectual and physical). If everyone in America had access to universal healthcare, imagine how much medical costs would drop. I paid 24% taxes in the US, plus I had an insurance premium, co-pays, and deductibles, had to save for college for my boys, and for my retirement. This put me up to at least 40% of my salary if not more. Now I pay 32%. University will be tuition-free for my boys (they will need to buy books, and a living space). My pension comes out of my tax, plus My job puts in an additional 5%. I pay a co-pay every time I go to the Dr. Once I hit about $350, everything is free including prescriptions until Jan 1st. Prescriptions are cheap because the government does not allow drug companies to set the prices. I can buy private insurance as well, and it is very affordable due to the low-cost of medical services. I have found I do not need it though. Imagine how much cheaper healthcare would be if 300 million people paid $30 a month out of their paycheck, had to meet a $350/$400 cap, etc. The cost of medical care and procedures would drop because everyone would be covered and paying. In the long run, it would be so much cheaper than medicare and medicaid which are a joke. Every sick person that goes into an emergency room uninsured gets medical care, which is then charged back to the state. This stuff is coming out of your taxes, yet you are not benefiting for it, and it is not helping the greater good of society. (And here I thought all the issues with healthcare in the U.S. were resolved by the Affordable Healthcare Act, silly me. One factor that a quick Google search indicates is that Norway is a country with a small population that is able to subsidize welfare programs via oil revenues. That allows the government to provide education and healthcare below cost. It isn’t a question of how efficiently the Norwegians are able to organize a welfare state but rather how much a county with a small population can distribute oil revenues. I know very little about the Norwegian health care system. I can say that in countries such as Great Britain and Canada where the government provides health care they have longer waiting periods for that care and fewer available options for treatment. Such health care isn’t free, the system just separates the price of it from the actual cost. Aside from what one pays in taxes, one pays in terms of those longer waiting periods and fewer choices.Hidden costs have a habit of coming back to haunt you. I also know little about the Norwegian university system but I have some experience with the German system which is also government funded. Although admission is free, it is also very competitive depending on the field of study. My quick Google search does indicate that the more desirable fields of study, there are more applicants than places at Norwegian universities. To me that indicates that those who are able to attend pay only part of the cost through their taxes (and their share of the nation’s oil revenues) while receiving subsidies from everyone else. If the actual costs weren’t disguised in the welfare program, I wonder whether those who didn’t get to go to a university might have wanted to do something else with their tax dollars and their share of the oil revenues than paying for someone else’s education.)
The borders are wide open:
How do you think most illegal immigrants get to the United States? Over half of illegal immigrants arrive on a travel visa and just never go back, or arrive via border crossing cards and never go back. Our borders are more secure than they have ever been, and this is backed by statistical scientific findings. Also, illegal immigration has been steadily decreasing since 2005. Immigration from Mexico has decreased by 57% from 2008-2012 (Pew Research). Fact: The borders have never been so secure. There is no indication that people coming illegally are being allowed to vote. If and when this is happening it is a clear case of voter fraud. A more serious issue is Russia hacking into our voting machines, and influencing our political discourse. (I agree that a significant part of illegal immigration is from those who overstay their visas. I question those studies that indicate they outnumber those who cross the border illegally because I am skeptical of our ability to determine the latter figure. Ranchers who have land on the border and others see illegals crossing in significant numbers regularly but achieving a reasonable estimate of their number is guesswork especially given the active attempts to cover up their presence in sanctuary cities and elsewhere. If we can’t count them, how can we tell how many there are? As for the numbers going down, doesn’t that reduction in illegal immigration cited above coincide with the rise of sanctuary cities and other efforts to frustrate the counting of illegals? It reminds me of the famous “body counts” in the Vietnam war that proved to be wildly inaccurate. One other distinction between those who overstay their visas and those who enter illicitly is that there is some vetting as part of the visa process to exclude dangerous criminals and terrorists. Even if someone so vetted overstays a visa, they pose less danger of crime or terrorism because of the vetting. Regardless of the relative numbers, the potential risk increases with the lack of vetting. As for the claim that there is no indication that illegals are being allowed to vote, anyone claiming that hasn’t been following the reports of the many instances where they have been allowed and indeed encouraged to vote. As for Russia hacking into our voting machines, then President Obama stated just before the 2016 election that it hasn’t happened and couldn’t happen. If the FBI knew of it, I find it difficult to believe that they didn’t bother to inform the White House and I am skeptical that there exists evidence of it and the special prosecutor just hasn’t decided to announce it yet. As the saying goes: “You’re entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts.”)
Enemies of the state emboldened by the left:
Like Russia is emboldened to meddle in our democracy and has not been condemned by the current administration? Like pandering to Kim Jong Un and treating him with more respect than our European allies? Like pandering to the Prince of Saudi Arabia, and just taking his word? When Saudia Arabia has produced those members of Al Qaeda that our government sanctions and gives a free pass to? I would say there are plenty of enemies of state emboldened by the right as well. (As regards Russian meddling, vide supra. Now as for the “pandering to Kim Jong Un” is this coming from the same anti-Trump people who criticized Trump for calling Kim “Little Rocket Man” and reminding him that although Kim might have a button, Trump’s was a lot bigger. Somehow, I missed the reports of Trump saying anything similar about our European allies. I assume that the comments about the Saudis refer to the death of Kashoggi. The sentence immediately following the criticism of Trump’s alleged pandering to the Saudi Prince takes him to task regarding the members of Al Qaeda whom the Saudis “gave a free pass.” That seems like another attempt to have it both ways. Kashoggi was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group, an admirer of Bin Ladin. He was a supporter of Al Qaeda and ISIS. He was more than just an journalist. To me it appears that the worst that one can say about the Saudis is that they expired Kashoggi’s “free pass.” We use drones, they chose a different method. Also, the current Turkish administration has a pretty bad record regarding journalists. Is the left criticizing Trump for pandering to Erdogan? How about China?)
Obama is a far left Globalist:
I am a moderate conservative, and I was not a big fan of Obama, because I felt that he was too conservative and didn’t change anything very much from the Bush era. Globalist, maybe. Far left, no way. (Sorry fella, but saying that you are a moderate conservative who felt that Obama was too conservative just doesn’t pass the laugh test. If that’s your position, you obviously have a different definition of “conservative” than most of us who call ourselves conservatives use. I suspect that you are so far to the left that you think that you are in the center. I suggest that you have a few conversations with some real conservatives to get an understanding of how most of the country understands the term.)
Far left liberals resorting to increasing violence:
Factually both the far left and the far right are resorting to increasing violence. (Check out the recent riots in Portland, OR. The right has no counterpart acting on anything like the scale of Antifa. One doesn’t see the right mobbing politicians and bureaucrats at restaurants or in the halls of Congress. I would also suggest that it isn’t just the far left. People high in the Democratic party support and encourage it, for example Maxine Waters, Keith Ellison and Hillary Clinton to name just a few. In addition, the Mayor of Portland Oregon encouraged violence by preventing the police from protecting citizens from Antifa rioters. If you encourage the mob you share responsibility for their actions. You don’t see anything like that from people in authority on the conservative side.)
The nation has been polarized since the 2016 election:
Wrong. The nation has been becoming increasingly polarized over the last two decades. Some argue that it began with the 24-hour news cycle (Fox, MSNBC, CNN). (I agree that it has been increasingly polarized over the last two decades however the rate of increase has gone up dramatically since the 2016 election. Where was Antifa in 2008 and 2012?)
Democratic party controls the media:
No, they do not. News can show a definite bias, and that is something the reader needs to be aware of. One thing I think is really great here in Norway is that a newspaper or tv news has to pay a fine if they print/broadcast anything that cannot be factually backed up. Maybe try reading foreign press in regards to the US. Most of Europe is strict about reporting factual based news, and calling out non factual. (While the party might not actually control the media, the media is dominated by those who share the Democratic party’s agenda. During the Obama administration, they were caught agreeing to use administration talking points for their news stories. As for Norway’s fining the media for what they publicize if they can’t back it up factually, doesn’t that indicate a degree of government control over the media? Who decides if it is backed up? How many stories critical of the government are killed because the media is afraid to tangle with bureaucrats who have the power to fine them. From my own experience working in a (non-media) business highly regulated by the government I know how much power the threat of sanctions gives those bureaucrats. Consider this, a media outlet might be able to challenge government fines in court but they still lose because the government attorneys are paid for by the government but the media outlet must hire their own attorneys. That means that even though you beat the fine in court, you are still out the legal fees which often are more than the fine. ( if you don’t believe that, you’re lucky because you’ve never had to hire a lawyer.) Such control can be insidious. While the government might be inclined to fine someone for a news story critical of the government, they would have less incentive to do so with a story critical of the opposition. Similarly, they would have incentive to go easier on a newspaper or broadcast station that generally supports the government than one who is more often critical of it. Although you can readily see where the government chose to impose a fine, the cases where the government could have imposed a fine but didn’t are less apparent. Reasons for that forbearance generally are invisible because such cases are unlikely to be challenged in court, but those regulated will get the message. It’s like having a baseball umpire that is part of the home team. It’s hard to avoid the suspicion that whether he calls a pitch a ball or a strike isn’t influenced by his support for his hometown.)
The Third Reich started controlling what people saw and heard:
This only happened after the Reich won the peoples’ trust. Before they were able to control it, they had to poison the peoples’ minds against the press (hence the use of Lügenpresse, or lying press). Hitler launched a huge campaign to his rabid followers that they couldn’t believe what they were seeing, hearing, and reading (fake news). He told the truth, everyone else was lying. He was charismatic enough and had a following that had blinders on to everything besides him as a leader. Only then was the Reich able to actually control the media for propaganda purposes. (Hitler’s voter support peaked around 36-37%. He came to power in a coalition and he had street thugs similar to Antifa to support him as well. Once he controlled the police, he could let those thugs attack anyone who spoke against him (by the way, similar in kind though Hitler’s SA acted to a much greater degree than Portland Oregon let Antifa run wild.) Also, the concentration camps for political opposition opened early in his rule. It’s questionable how much he won the people’s trust and how much he won their fear. He promised much to the German people as well as made sure that they, disarmed and helpless to oppose him, knew that there was a stick as well as a carrot. That didn’t require general trust, just control over the government. If you don’t believe that the threat of violence can inhibit the press, I suggest that you ask your local paper to put on a “draw-Mohammad” contest and see what their reaction is.)
Anyway, I wanted to point out that by seeing one side as being inherently right/good and the other side as being inherently bad/wrong, you are a part of the problem and not the solution. (I agree that neither side has a monopoly of being right, but then again, you can say that about most any conflict. I suggest that the question isn’t who is 100% right but who is better at transferring power from the government back to individuals. After all, the individual is the ultimate minority.)
Stay tuned for The Common Man Himself!!!
