Policy making is by nature an inherently political process. If there wasn't politics involved, there would be no need for policy, people would just do the right thing in the right moment all the time. An argument could be made that policy helps overcome the collective human apathy. No matter how much you offer free education and access to resources a large percentage of people will never be self-driven enough to consider the effects of their actions on the society around them. In reality, most people can't even be trusted to make the proper decisions for THEMSELVES as seen by the over-use of alcohol, tobacco, drugs and unhealthy foods. But is there more to the story? Absolutely... There are groups of people who are motivated to control others and to create their ideal society to forge the world into a new way. These groups conflict and their agendas are sometimes very far from pure.

Welfare and public healthcare are two big policies that fall under the category of subversive intentions. It is reasonable for people to want their tax dollars spent appropriately and it is the tax payers who pay for these services. Yes there are those who believe in a tax-less libertarian society. Yes there are those who believe that hard work pays off and that opportunity is equal in every aspect of society and if you don’t work hard and make money your just lazy and wasting your American Dream. In my opinion, these views are very short-sided and don’t take into account the reality of the darkness of the human spirit.

I believe racism, classicism, religious intolerance and ethnocentric cultural bias all play MAJOR factors in welfare and healthcare policy. Not only in these policies, I believe these factors play immense roles in the workforce which limits opportunity for said groups to achieve an equal American Dream. Everyone wants a family, everyone wants to hire family, everyone wants to hire someone from their Church. People don’t want their daughters being exposed to successful people of a different type. This horrid intolerance drives much of the social and professional inequality that, without policy, makes it impossible for some people to ever earn proper livable wages.

In this situation, public policy is crucial. In a perfect libertarian world we would all pay cash for our schools. In our corrupt souless American society you could be dang sure that outsiders would never ever even have the opportunity to make enough wages to send there kids to school. Even better, make sure they work so hard for so little pay that when they get sick they can just die off. Public policy regarding welfare and healthcare ensure that people have the RIGHT to live, the RIGHT to be healthy. Even more, they have the RIGHT to have a BASIC educational foundation so that THEY THEMSELVES can become EMPOWERED to be entrepreneurs and start their OWN American Dream for THEIR friends and family.

That is, isn’t it, the true essence of the American Dream? Creating a melting pot of successful entrepreneurs of ALL cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Who does this benefit? These diverse independent business owners will all approach their respective industries with a unique culturally inspired perspective that overall adds value to the nation as a whole. We don’t want a country of laborers, we want a country of extremely varied and diverse groups of people who make sure that the demand for our physical and intellectual products will never grow stale.

And regardless of what some of the traditional supremacists might say, this does benefit everyone. This no-man-left-behind American Dream is what has and will make our country the greatest place on Earth. We are quickly loosing respect world wide and the risk of foreign cultural takeover is real. For this reason, we should strive to empower ALL types of American's to be American so we can stand united and strong.

America IS a melting pot. The scum floats to the top while the rest of us get our asses burned on the bottom. Some of us are held down there with a boot while others are scooped off the top with a golden spoon. The way it is and the way it will always be.

Libertarian dream would be enacted the same way, due to the THOUSANDS of years an enculturation that got us to this point. Certain folks would always be scooped off the top with golden spoons. . . . Except in an extreme libertarian situation there would be even less/fewer protections available for the down-trodden, sick, elders, etc. That, and all kinds of weirdness like everyone carries a pistol on their hip . . .

Although by an large most people are good, peaceful, family oriented folks, . . . people by an large do NOT do the right thing at the right time. Altruism does not appear in nature much. People are extremely self-interested. Always have been and always will be.

Thus, some government/policy institutions are necessary. Not what we have now. More like the original dream (too bad the original dream/text was only for monied, Christian, Caucasian males). Forms in place to HELP people and to further the greater good. Pave the streets, make them safe, improve public health and education, etc.

What we live in today is like the final days of Ancient Rome. Wars far from our national borders for "national security," embracing foreign cults and fundamentalism, power being centralized in the hands of a few, etc.

It has been a fascinating experiment that has changed the world in countless ways, but it is WAY past it's prime. Yet so entrenched that it would take a formidable revolution or like with Rome, decades to centuries of brutal sackings to bring to a final end.

I kinda agree about the top 1%, but I don't have so much of a negative view regarding the rest. There are still possibilities for those willing to make the personal sacrifices.

America is a country currently run by greed and short-sighted problem solving. Our political system is an atrocity of corruption and lies...

HOWEVER, it is the citizens faults for electing such people and keeping them in office. I completely agree the government is screwed up, many social policies are outdated and much more is wrong as well. BUT, i feel we Americans take full responsibility. I was only able to vote in the reelection, where i chose not to vote because i did not support either candidate and i HATE the electoral college concept. Americans do not choose wise career paths, and do not think about the future enough. Those that are unfit to succeed should not succeed or be able to produce yet more failures. I am not a big fan of welfare or social security. If you can't use your intelligence, interests, and talents to make a living in a particular system, then you shouldn't be a part of the system you are failing in. Find a new system, make a new system but innovate or change to succeed, and if you can't you are not fit and should not survive. Humanity is too large to keep letting people with sub-par intelligence, talents, or drive to populate. If you retire, then you should be able to independently support yourself for longer than you expect. I love people, i do volunteer work, i engage people on their morals and philosophies constantly.

Frankly i feel that America fails every time someone without a doctoral degree is voted into office. we should not vote people that are like the average person into office, we need people far more intelligent than the average person. If we had a congress of MD's and PhD's in office i can almost guarantee America would be so much better off. I could only vote last year but i still take blame for not being active before that, and maybe my generation will change things but its doubtful looking at past trends. Americans are very hypocritical and love being ignorant, and frankly the public is the biggest obstacle in the way of change at this point IMO. Whatever the public does, so too does its government.

Epic FP Snozz

This is no longer true for a variety of reasons.

I think you have an unrealistic view of "democratic" processes and post secondary education, and what such things have to offer.

I will forfeit to house on the national scale, but not state politics, at least not until i know much more. Local politics influence national politics and it seems, in my state anyways, that people elect the officials who make my state quite bad when it comes to social issues. We have a pretty healthy economy, but our social policies leave something to be desired for sure.
I see houses point regarding presidential elections, but not much past that. If you could elaborate i would be most grateful and eager to read

I am sure my views will change a bit when i am out of college and more involved in the professional world, but for the most part that's how i see it now. Given there are a ridiculous amount of things that play into it, but at least in my area of the country, i see many people who fail to inform themselves with the resources at their disposal. I also see and know many people who are quite intelligent and could do much to change things, but instead they prefer getting drunk and stoned, working a minimum wage or not much better job, and avoiding the hassle of school.

Jamie could you also please elaborate?

Nice...social Darwinism. What fun!


I suppose you feel similarly about corporations? Or is it just individuals that are undeserving of welfare? And what if the only reason you are "part" of a system to begin with is because you have no other choice to begin with? Better you should die, eh?


Nice...even more social Darwinism. If the system's killing you...tough cookies!


Ooooooh...eugenics...may favorite!!! Where do we start the ethnic cleansing?


Yea man! Murica only succeeds with people like Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Robert Gates, Newt Gingrich, etc. at the helm! (Just to point out, the notion of "America succeeding" is a red herring to begin with)


In your opinion is certainly correct! The facts just don't support it.

Well over 2/3 of Americans wanted (and still want) a single-payer healthcare system...who killed it? Politicians backed by corporations.

Look at the other stats, for military engagement, drug policy, social welfare, etc. I've posted them on the forum from time to time and they're publicly available. The numbers speak for themselves...the people know what they want.

The system is not broken, it's functioning exactly as it was designed. The founders explicitly said as much. John Jay said, "The people who own the country ought to govern it."

James Madison said, "Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority," and "[If elections] were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place."

I can share quotes about the joys of exterminating the indigenous, of having dominion over slaves, of utilizing capitalism to maximize both profits and control. Pretending like "The People" are the major obstacle to their own freedom and determination may fly in Poli Sci classes (it certainly did when I got my degree), but it's just not supported by any evidence. Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" is a great place to start deconstructing the propaganda commonly encountered with regards to the ideas presented here.

It has nothing to do with being in college or out of college, in the professional world or not. The analysis you present does not hold up when measured against the real world. Hence the facepalm of epic proportions presented earlier in this thread.

I am a bit of a social Darwinist, I don't see why it is wrong to apply to humans when we do the same in domestication of animals and plants. I see how social darwinism can be bad in the long run, but i frankly see no right for humans to be exempt from natural selection just because we have medicine, technology, and can create social situations to get out of it. I am extreme in these views, but they are what logically click for me, if someone can direct me to a more satisfactory logic i would certainly consider it. But this is what i have concluded so far.

That being said, i would prefer free schooling, and the freedom and right to establish one's worth in what they desire, to people hoping on and off the unemployment train. I am not trying to say that if you are born into a crap situation that has no opportunity you deserve to die, but if you are given an opportunity, and are not able to take advantage of that, you certainly don't deserve to live off of others who did take advantage.

Some people will hate their job so much they quit before getting a new one and end up on welfare. i have no sympathy for those people. You can be a good person, but a roof over your head, food in your belly and clothes on your back are not rights everyone is entitled too. We are LUCKY enough to be provided those things, but we are not entitled. no more than a lion is entitled to its next meal or a freezing japanese macaque has a right to the hot springs its elites populate.

And i feel your last point about the corporations backing politicians builds into mine about american inactivity. The corporations didn't just get powerful enough to be considered people under our laws or have the power to essentially pick politicians. That is the result of American inactivity against such things. I don't recall hearing about country wide riots when it was ruled corporations could have personhood?? I dont recall people going insane, and by insane i mean more than verbalizing their opinion, over the many decisions and laws enacted to create the system we are now unhappy with. We gave corporations that power and politicians that slide. it didn't just evaporate out of nowhere.

My point is not so much that people don't know what they want, but that they are unwilling to carry out the action needed to get it Its easy to know what you want, that wasn't my point. It not easy to sacrifice your way of life to make that change happen, everybody wants the change but nobody wants to be the martyr that starts it.

I would facepalm again, but I can't top the one I've already presented. I would urge you to do some research on the ties between social Darwinism, eugenics, imperialism, white supremacy, and patriarchy (for starters).

What you are calling "natural selection" is a supreme bastardization of the scientific concept. Perhaps look into Peter Kropotkin and Anarchism as an infinitely more logical explanation of both natural and social systems.

I appreciate you taking the time to elaborate your position, but I can't really engage with this, I don't have the time/energy.

Occupy happened...it was preceded by the anti-globalization movement...it will be followed by more to come. Revolution and revolt are currently underway all over the world, you just have to look for it. Hell, it's not even hidden...it's literally been happening in front of your eyes. Just look.

Thanks for the reading material, I will definitely check it all out and consider it, social issues are an enigma i have gotten away from recently. I am sure change is happening over the world, but not so sure about america.

I don't really appreciate the face palm for expressing my views though.

I will say with full honesty i am a much more extreme and harsh person than the vast majority of the population, whether here or most places in the world. That is how i was raised, even as a 10 year old, it was clearly conveyed to me that i had no right to anything and must earn it, and that i was a financial burden and not much more. If i didn't do chores or get great grades it was made clear i was not doing my part to earn my keep. Love is and has always been a couple time a year word for me. I read it on my birthday card and on my Christmas card.

I have been raised coldly by my family, and treated coldly by most, so i lack that empathy and care that so many of you feel. I am not complaining, simply trying to help you understand the way i experience the world.

That doesn't mean that you should perpetuate a negative mentality.
I can talk about my ancestors, who were forced from their villages to desolate lands in the middle of no where, denied citizenship, hunted for fun, jailed or killed for their religion, and denied true sovereignty even TODAY and be bitter about it Standing Silent Nation. I have been completely screwed over and over by the American Medical System to where it has made me cold. During my last acid trip I noticed how cold I was becoming and just how awful a way of thinking that is I was damaging my personal relationships with this terrible consciousness.

Why can't we just love? Why is it so hard to love?

I don't really see myself as bitter, i never actively try to put people down, i'm just not a very warm or sweet person. As for love, i am not sure i know what that feels like hahaha, like i legitimately don't really understand it, beyond being a chemical process in the brain. I really have no idea how to distinguish it from affection, which i use reason to determine. LOL at myself for just realizing i don't know what love is. i would sacrifice my life for someone if i thought they would use it better than i did, but i really can't say with certainty that i have ever loved anyone.

Sorry to derail

Well, I genuinely feel sorry for you and I wish for you it had been different and that you will heal.

But do you realize how you are rationalizing "a bit of social darwinism" with the above and how utterly irrational that is?

Also, if you are against welfare, it is your good right. But start acting against corporate welfare first, for it is the bigger problem. Most of the anti-welfare propaganda and rhetoric merrily ignores this.

Also, with regard to the lions, consider that there are no billionaire lions. They hold all the territory they can personally maintain as a claim, completely unlike the situation in our human society, where people are kept in slavish hypnosis to abstract concepts they hardly understand, but to which they have been conditioned (if not by their "loving" parents, then by "free" education).

Nations hold territories that they are able to and other nations will try to take when they can, that is easily seen through human history. and the sad thing with conditioning is there will always be a condition to which we are inclined. if not the conditioning of society, or being rich or poor, enlightened or ignorant, then the conditioning of nature. It can certainly be said some lions, or prides, have much more prosperous territories, with more water, food, shelter, and lionesses than others, which isn't a dreadfully far comparison to human wealth IMO. I am certainly against corporate welfare, more so than individual. I should have clarified that earlier, sorry.

I will add that i don't see american's as under a "Slavish hypnosis" when we have public libraries and free information on the internet.

"The Game Is Rigged!" George Carlin on American Dream

i noticed he said at 2:58 "willfully ignorant"

The media, i completely agree with, which is why i don't read much other media besides science journals, maybe they are censored too, but not nearly as bad or biased as t.v.

The media is useless, i was talking more about independent research, not a news station finding information, changing it and presenting it to you, but looking at everything for yourself, which i need to do more of involving certain statistics it seems. Right down to how the stats were calculated and what populations were used.