Author Topic: Poverty has been eliminated  (Read 1773 times)

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Offline 21stCenturyThinker

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Poverty has been eliminated
« on: April 28, 2012, 11:24:57 AM »
I don't know firsthand that poverty has vanished completely but I think we can infer it.

I was watching the piggyback flight of the space shuttle Enterprise to its final resting place and caught an offhand comment by one of the reporters. They talked about "controversy over the expense of the shuttle program and whether the money would be better spent somewhere else".

It reminded me of the Apollo program and the constant harangue of the liberals about how expensive the moon landings were, and how much better the USA (the world?) would be if that money was instead spent on the poor. Or education. They got their way: even to the extent that Apollo 18, which was already built, crewed and ready was instead scrapped and never flown.

So we have no moon bases, no lunar launch pad for Mars missions, no mining, no colonization, no push toward the stars or planets. In other words, none of the future that was promised to us who were children of the 50's and 60's. I guess Chinese children own those dreams now.

What did we trade our future for? What did we get in return? All that money was used to eliminate poverty and improve education.  So I stand by my assertion: there are no more poor. We sacrificed our dreams and our future to create the utopia that we now enjoy.

Do you think there's any chance that Liberals will understand the irony? No, make that tragedy. Or will they instead think that the answer is to throw even MORE money into social programs and completely destroy the middle class? That's the funny part: social programs don't lower the rich and raise the poor- they wipe out the middle class with taxes and the gap between the wealthy and the rest of us gets wider and wider.

And don't get me started talking about how the state lotteries were going to revolutionize funding of education.

Online Pandora

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Re: Poverty has been eliminated
« Reply #1 on: April 28, 2012, 11:52:40 AM »
For all the money spent on education, it has gotten poorer, in terms of product anyway.

On societal poverty, the "measurers" have moved from objective to subjective standards; it's "relative poverty" now. 
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Offline warpmine

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Re: Poverty has been eliminated
« Reply #2 on: April 28, 2012, 12:55:32 PM »
Spent $15 Trillion on poverty and social engineering programs and we have a almost identical amount of government debt owned by the future generations to the tune of what $48k per citizen to which the reality is that most of them will never have to pay any of it back because they are takers not contributors.

Liberalism, the disease that keeps on giving er uh taking making all poor but hey at least they meant well.

A civil war would have been much cheaper in terms of debt.
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Offline Glock32

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Re: Poverty has been eliminated
« Reply #3 on: April 28, 2012, 12:58:18 PM »
If you confiscated the wealth of every person in America, then redistributed it equally to everyone, within 5 years we would again have rich and poor. Liberals refuse to accept that some people are smarter and more ambitious than others, and that these differences are largely innate is a particular horror for them. There is no limit to the amount of treasure and blood they will sacrifice in their efforts to command the tides.

Liberalism is a cultural virus, it has laid low the body of its host and we are now attacked by various other maladies that would have ordinarily been swept aside in the most perfunctory manner.
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Offline Alphabet Soup

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Re: Poverty has been eliminated
« Reply #4 on: April 28, 2012, 03:24:25 PM »
If you confiscated the wealth of every person in America, then redistributed it equally to everyone, within 5 years we would again have rich and poor. Liberals refuse to accept that some people are smarter and more ambitious than others, and that these differences are largely innate is a particular horror for them. There is no limit to the amount of treasure and blood they will sacrifice in their efforts to command the tides.

Liberalism is a cultural virus, it has laid low the body of its host and we are now attacked by various other maladies that would have ordinarily been swept aside in the most perfunctory manner.

Years ago the Family Court Industrial Complex played a variation of that on me - gave everything I own to my x. It took closer to ten years but I rebuilt (almost) everything I lost and she is back in poverty again. Of course she always was of a poverty state of mind.

Funny how life turns out sometimes.......not.

Offline LadyVirginia

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Re: Poverty has been eliminated
« Reply #5 on: April 28, 2012, 04:09:58 PM »
If you confiscated the wealth of every person in America, then redistributed it equally to everyone, within 5 years we would again have rich and poor. Liberals refuse to accept that some people are smarter and more ambitious than others, and that these differences are largely innate is a particular horror for them. There is no limit to the amount of treasure and blood they will sacrifice in their efforts to command the tides.

Liberalism is a cultural virus, it has laid low the body of its host and we are now attacked by various other maladies that would have ordinarily been swept aside in the most perfunctory manner.

Years ago the Family Court Industrial Complex played a variation of that on me - gave everything I own to my x. It took closer to ten years but I rebuilt (almost) everything I lost and she is back in poverty again. Of course she always was of a poverty state of mind.

Funny how life turns out sometimes.......not.

I, too, have a variation...my brother sued me to get control of my father's safe deposit box when it was discovered after he died there was 15,000 in it.  I decided it wasn't worth the aggravation or expense and let him have it. Well, a year later he didn't have a penny and nothing to show for it.  Sad because my dad saved all that only to have his son waste it. My dad knew he was sick, too bad he didn't gift it before he died because at least my share would have amounted to something.
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Re: Poverty has been eliminated
« Reply #6 on: April 28, 2012, 04:37:35 PM »
The Bible tells us the poor will always be with us; poor of mind, soul, character, and, therefore, circumstances, I suspect. 

This, at the least, results in material poverty in this country, if how "the poor" here live today can objectively considered poverty.  I don't believe it can.  "The poor" are encouraged to be poor, stay poor, think poor and poor-mouth by the poverty pimps who would be out of their jobs if it was widely acknowledged that poverty had been, indeed, eliminated.  This is way I say that the standards have had to be re-calculated as "relative poverty".

Do you live in a proper dwelling, own a car, a TV, computer, cellphone, eat well enough to put on a few pounds?  There's still a place for you on the poverty scale because, as somebody down the street has a bigger house, two cars, a BIGGER TV, you are "poorer" than him.

This is borne out of the desire to spread envy and covetousness, not for the benefit of the less well-off -- harboring these sins corrodes the bearer -- but for the benefit of those who would promise to "kill Ivan's goat" if elected.  None of the envious gains materially from the slaying of the goat, but it temporarily sates the feeling of "dog in the manger", until it's time -- elections -- for the Looters to again gin up the jealousy.

I have tried to imagine, and failed, what this country would look like today, physically and spiritually, if all the multiple trillions that governments have taken and wasted had been left in the hands of the capable and the producers.

Much of what I write accurately reflected what was materially true yesterday, before al bin Destructo and his merry band of czars fully emerged.  Today, many people's actual circumstances have degraded, and the number of poor in spirit seem to have become legion.
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Offline Sectionhand

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Re: Poverty has been eliminated
« Reply #7 on: April 28, 2012, 04:53:16 PM »
If a problem could be solved by simply throwing money at it we'd have the best dressed , best housed , best fed and best educated kids in the world . But we don't . The solution lies somewhere else .  ::oldman::

Offline Alphabet Soup

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Re: Poverty has been eliminated
« Reply #8 on: April 28, 2012, 05:53:12 PM »
If you confiscated the wealth of every person in America, then redistributed it equally to everyone, within 5 years we would again have rich and poor. Liberals refuse to accept that some people are smarter and more ambitious than others, and that these differences are largely innate is a particular horror for them. There is no limit to the amount of treasure and blood they will sacrifice in their efforts to command the tides.

Liberalism is a cultural virus, it has laid low the body of its host and we are now attacked by various other maladies that would have ordinarily been swept aside in the most perfunctory manner.

Years ago the Family Court Industrial Complex played a variation of that on me - gave everything I own to my x. It took closer to ten years but I rebuilt (almost) everything I lost and she is back in poverty again. Of course she always was of a poverty state of mind.

Funny how life turns out sometimes.......not.

I, too, have a variation...my brother sued me to get control of my father's safe deposit box when it was discovered after he died there was 15,000 in it.  I decided it wasn't worth the aggravation or expense and let him have it. Well, a year later he didn't have a penny and nothing to show for it.  Sad because my dad saved all that only to have his son waste it. My dad knew he was sick, too bad he didn't gift it before he died because at least my share would have amounted to something.

I am sorry to hear that if for no other reason than that it puts an unfortunate punctuation to the life and times of your father. My dad passed but my mom is still with us (thank God!). It saddens and frustrates me to know that there is a similar struggle yet to come between my sister and the rest of us surviving sons. I probably won't be anything other than a minor party because the fact is that I'm already rich beyond measure because I have my memories of a great relationship between my parents and me.

Offline BMG

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Re: Poverty has been eliminated
« Reply #9 on: April 28, 2012, 06:19:38 PM »
Or will they instead think that the answer is to throw even MORE money into social programs and completely destroy the middle class?

Exactly as it is with social security and Obamacare, etc;

It never has been about the poor.

It has ALWAYS been about the power.

The left uses 'the poor' because that tugs on the heartstrings of the ignorant who don't particularly follow politics and therefore, makes it an easy win at the ballot box for the leftists. They throw money at the 'problem' in effect to redistribute that money and increase their voting block by essentially buying the votes of the people on the receiving end. It doesn't matter to the leftists that the 'poor' are never elevated beyond the classification of 'poor' by this, in fact they count on it because it insures a loyal base of voters who are essentially trapped. If they vote for some other political group that would mean voting away food from their own table.

This redistribution of wealth necessarily destroys the middle class over time thereby adding more voters to the ranks of the poor and thereby, increasing the voting base of the leftists. It's all calculated and has absolutely nothing to do with compassion for the 'poor'.

The proof of this is simple to see.

Everywhere that leftists wage a war on poverty, it never succeeds no matter how much time and money is thrown at it. A thinking person would soon realize that it is the wrong way to solve the 'problem' and would then seek to try other solutions. The leftists never do that. Instead, they demonize anyone opposing them and demand that more time and money as thrown at the 'problem', and exacerbate the situation.

The proof is staring us all in the face all you have to do is look at Detroit Michigan. For the last 50-odd years it has been in complete leftist control on a local level. They have promised to improve things there every election cycle...yet curiously, it has only ever gotten worse and has never improved in all that time. There are countless examples of this...I just used that one because it was convenient.
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