73 replies to this topic

[VeggieBoy 3000]

There was a "moral crusade" to end slavery too, chief

You should add that one to your list, because that one sure pissed off half the nation as well.

Just a little thought...

[Oroku Saki]

The ending of slavery is different, because it is dealing with people who lived within our country that deserved the same rights as the rest of us. When I listed a few "Moral Crusades" in history, I was talking about the ones that had more of a negative effect on society rather than a positive one. Not all "Moral Crusades" are bad, and I never said that all of them were.

[Nello]

And a mother, who lives in very low class, who gets diddled should have to give a child a very unfortunate life style, knowing that they are not only unwanted, but the product of violence?

No man on this forum has any fucking right to say what a woman can and can not do. I wouldn't even go there. And guess what... Bush did.

Yes, I do think that its okay for a woman to get an abortion if she is diddled, but my comments were geared towards a situation where consentual sex was the means by which the woman became pregnant. Sorry for not making that clear.
I was not saying what a woman should do in that situation, I was giving my opinion.

Why did God (for those that believe in him) allow abortion to become available?"

Okay, first things first. I believe in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. I believe that Jesus is God's son and that he came to earth and lived a perfect life, and died on the cross for the sins of every single person who will ever live. I believe he is the atoning sacrifice for my sin, and everyone else's sin. Oh yeah, I believe he rose from the dead too. Now that thats cleared up. When God created humans he didn't want to have mindless drones who worshiped him. He wanted us to choose to worship and serve God. That is why God gave us free will. That is why some people chose to do things that God didn't like. That is why we have abortion.

Edited by Nello, 01 May 2004 - 11:32 PM.

[Blaster]

No man on this forum has any fucking right to say what a woman can and can not do. I wouldn't even go there. And guess what... Bush did.

I'm not trying to tell anyone what they can and cannot do. I'm just saying I'm against abortion because I believe it to be murder. I've never gone and told anyone not to get an abortion, and I have never made the attempt to. If the chance was offered I would voice my opinion to the person getting the abortion in hopes to change their mind, but other than that there is nothing I can do. Now in the case of a diddle then there's nothing that woman can do. However once again the idea of adoption can be put up, and that child will know that even though s/he was the product of violence their life still meant enough to not be aborted. In the case of the woman being diddled and at the same time having a disease in which child birth can kill her, well I'm not a friggin genius so don't expect me to come up with an answer to this unlikely situation. In this case two lives are at stake and I don't know what happens then. And to whatever jackass it was who posed the question as to why God would allow abortion, well I can't really put it any better than Nello just did. This sentence was made just for the purpose of calling you a jackass for insulting my religion.

Edited by Blaster, 02 May 2004 - 12:12 AM.

[The Infinite Shindig]

I think I've successfully wasted over an hour and a half of my life reading all of the political debates on this forum. This leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth regarding politics. The most recent topics weren't the first regarding politics that I've read on a nerf forum either. I think my problem is that very few people have the ability to admit that they can see and understand someone else's point. Every political debate I have every read online turns into a shit flinging match. Each side eventually resorts to partially/un-truthful pot shots that just disgust me. Feel free to rip apart my stereotypical judgement on you all.

P.S. I am a liberal that is growing more moderate by the day.

[Vintage]

I am sorry you feel this is wasted time, but I do agree that this topic is a very sensitive one to most people. Most either dwell on the rights of the mom, or the rights of the child. One focuses on preference, one focuses on morality.

From what I see, most pro-choice advocates agree with abortion, because it is easy, simple, cheap, and the alternatives means a long pregnancy, the pain of childbirth, and a decision on adoption or keeping the child in the end. Also they believe its best for the child to not live with the feeling of unwantedness.

The pro-life stance advocates childbirth, because it prevents the pain and death of the child, gives the chance for a loving family to take care of him, helps to prevent psychological damage to mother, and gives the mother the chance to see her child again in the future, if her attitude changes in relationship to her decision.

I do agree that better teaching in schools concerning the realm of pregnancy would indeed help. The abstinence programs work too. People must recognize just what they are doing when the have sexual relations with another.

I hope, shindig, that you don't think we are slinging mud at each other. I believe Oroku_Saki and I have handled ourselves very decently. I do agree that politics in general have the tendancy to shift to mud-slinging, so I hope we can leave this topic in peace.

~Vintage

Edit: Blaster, don't call people names who insult Christianity.

Edited by Vintage, 02 May 2004 - 12:51 PM.

[ompa]

Guys, can't we just end this now? If you haven't noticed, it's basically ripping the forum members into little groups, which will be undoubtedly used to judge other people's mods and stuff on the other sections of the forum now. I'm sure that many want to debate this, but please do it somewhere else; I mean, this is supposed to be a fun site where people talk about plastic weapons. Not someplace where people rip eachother up over political issues. Let's just all leave the abortion issue now, and continue shooting eachother with foam projectiles.

~ompa

[merlinski]

Basic, natural rights? How can such things exist if humans evolved from chance? Just by chance everyone agrees it's wrong to steal? Or murder? Or a whole list of things. My point I tried to make is: Try to picture a world of chance. A world where everyone makes their own decisions concerning morals.

I don't think you understood what I was saying. Moral relativism is the idea of no moral being right, or "a world where everyone makes their own decisions concerning morals". I said I wasn't advocating that. But the other part of your statement is a very valid rebuttal, so I'll address that:

The basic, natural rights are not determined by everyone coming up with their own ideas and agreeing. These rights are derived from the basis of human nature, as the rights that are essential to protect if society is to function. Humanity's power comes from our unique ability to build complex societies, as we have evolved we have learned that, to keep societies in order, we must protect basic rights. It's not that everyone has their own morals that happen to coincide with "it's wrong to steal", its that everyone realizes "hey, we don't want a society that allows theft, because then there will be chaos".

I can picture a world of chance, because that's the world we live in. Morals, as we know them, exist because of the combination between the human mind and the world we live in.

Shindig, I'm sorry you feel that way, I've always personally tried not to go into mudslinging, and I think that Vintage and Oroku-Saki have done a good job of that as well.

Edited by merlinski, 02 May 2004 - 01:23 PM.

[Oroku Saki]

I try my best to make my posts intelligent, and I appreciate your compliment, Merlinski. Vintage, even though several of us do not agree with some of your views, I think you have been doing a pretty good job in putting in your point, and I am sure you will continue to improve.

Nello, you made an excellent point to counter my argument, and I resepct that. I have said this many, many times in this thread: Even though I personally am mainly Pro-Choice, I still feel that abortion used just to simply get rid of the child is wrong, and I even have my own religous limits when it comes to that. That is why if I were to get my girlfriend pregnant, we would still care for and raise the child ourselves (we have been together happily for over 2-1/2 years now, and yes, we have discussed this scenario together). If you look at Julie's posts (as well as several of mine), I think that our country needs to reform several things in society before we consider putting a law down to ban abortion entirely. Pro-choice means that you favor CHOICE. It does not mean that you have to approve of all forms of abortion. One of the reasons why I favor choice is that since I am a guy, I feel that I have no right to tell women what they can or can't do to their bodies. Another reason why I do not favor banning abortion now is partially due to a few personal reasons, as well as possible negative consequences to society if it does happen.

Abortion is a very sensitive issue, especially for those who have morals that may differ from other people. I did my best in trying to reason with everyone, and I'm sorry if I've offended anyone. Even though this is an important issue to debate, there are many other important issues that we should not forget about in this coming election. I think that it would be best if we could throw aside our moral differences about abortion for a bit, and talk about the other things that affect us in the world today.

I'm sorry that I don't know where to start on this to bring this debate into a higher gear. Anyone care to share some thoughts about some other issues, or do you guys just want to keep on this topic?

Edited by Oroku_Saki, 02 May 2004 - 09:19 PM.

[Vintage]

I thank you for your insight, Oroku_Saki, and I think you summed everything up. I feel no need to further this topic.

~Vintage

Edit: Ok, how about budget spending? What realms should the Feds focus on with our tax money?

Edited by Vintage, 02 May 2004 - 09:59 PM.

[merlinski]

I thank you for your insight, Oroku_Saki, and I think you summed everything up. I feel no need to further this topic.

~Vintage

Edit: Ok, how about budget spending? What realms should the Feds focus on with our tax money?

That's assuming, of course, that the Bush Administration realizes that if they want to spend money, they have to have some to begin with. You can't increase spending, decrease taxes, and blame the deficit on 9/11. It just doesn't work that way.

[Oroku Saki]

Looking at Bush's current budget, I feel that he is not working it up to proper efficiency, which is one of the primary reasons why I feel he is weak as a president serving the American people. I do realize that the 80 billion he proposed for spending on the military is a necessary evil not just because of the war on terrorism, but to cover our asses if something does go wrong. What I think Bush's administration (or Kerry's administration if he gets elected) should do is audit all of the government's programs and spending, patch up the leaks, get rid of the useless programs, and use the saved money to strengthen our important programs, or pay off the deficit. Our government has aged quite a bit, and doing this could make for a great facelift.

Edited by Oroku_Saki, 02 May 2004 - 10:30 PM.

[cxwq]

Here's the current budget summary.

Just in case anybody wants some numbers.

If you're really a glutton for punishment, the whole thing is here.

I'd love to see some elaboration on what programs people consider to be unnecessary.

[Oroku Saki]

Here's the current budget summary.

Just in case anybody wants some numbers.

If you're really a glutton for punishment, the whole thing is here.

I'd love to see some elaboration on what programs people consider to be unnecessary.

Right now, I can't think of anything in particular that may be unnecessary. I guess that may depend on how everything is audited.

[cxwq]

Every candidate for any political office as far back as I can remember has pledged to audit the current programs to get rid of waste and corruption.

I happen to work for the State of California and I can honestly say that there is less waste and corruption at my university than at a typical corporation. People here find innovative ways to save money and still do our jobs. When the budgetary climate demands cutbacks (like now) we stop replacing people who retire or quit, and freeze our credit cards. When more money is available, we institute new procedures to explain why we need more than we've been making do with during the cutback years. I do more now with less budget than I had 6 years ago.

Of course everyone still thinks that every four years we can just audit our spending and save a bunch of money by eliminating all the pointless waste.

[Oroku Saki]

If our government can't audit and overhaul all spending, I think the least they can do is find more intelligent ways to spend our tax dollars. Like Merlinski said, we can't just increase spending, reduce taxes, and blame the deficit on something that has no real direct effect on it. We shouldn't be having a deficit every year in the first place. This makes me wonder: Some of the higher government positions are held by uppper class who supposedly know how to properly take care of financial management, yet they still find ways to foolishly spend more than what the government makes in tax revenue. I haven't done too much research on this, but does anyone know what type of budget Kerry plans to propose if he takes office?

[Vintage]

What I can't understand, like Oroku_Saki, is why we spend more money than we actually have in the first place. I think that we need to cut back an spending, money needs to be used to the most efficiency (something cxwq seems to know alot about), pull money out of the mars project (but who knows, maybe good technology can be found on mars) , and put it into education reform, or even give it back to NASA to use for more high tech research such as AI.

That's some fascinating stuff, but let's just hope they don't develop the will to dominate and enslave mankind.

Oroku, I don't know anything about Kerry's plans, so that's mainly why I wanted to talk about budget spending, so I can learn.

~Vintage

[cxwq]

Oroku, I don't know anything about Kerry's plans, so that's mainly why I wanted to talk about budget spending, so I can learn.

Sadly, we never see the details of a candidate's budget plans until they're elected and it's too late.

Here is Kerry's press release on the economy.

Though he promises to "at least" halve the deficit (from the current $307b) during his first year, he's somewhat vague on exactly how he's going to do that. He does, however, elaborate on some of the general targets for his economic plan:

End Special Tax Breaks: To restore fiscal discipline and strengthen our economy, Kerry will repeal Bush’s special tax breaks for Americans who make more than $200,000.

Cut Excesses in Government: One of the Bush Administrations well-kept secrets is that under his watch the size of government has actually gotten bigger – not smaller. John Kerry will reduce the size of the Federal government by: bringing spending down to the level of GDP it was under Clinton, requiring federal agencies to submit annual plans to reduce energy costs by 20 percent by 2020; cut the Federal government’s administrative costs by five percent; cut the number of political appointees and ban providing bonuses for political appointees; cut fraud and abuse in government programs – fraud and abuse is estimated to cost $12 billion in Medicare alone and end rules that prevent the Federal government from having the same purchasing authority as the private sector.

Restore Budget Rules to Stop Runaway Spending. John Kerry believes we need to reverse the new budget rules Republicans in Congress have established that make it easier to spend into deficits with fewer votes. He will also review and reassess all discretionary spending programs to determine their effectiveness and whether they should continue to be funded.

Implement the McCain-Kerry Commission on Corporate Welfare. Powerful special interest groups make it hard to cut special tax loopholes and pork barrel spending projects. John Kerry supports a Commission that would recommend cuts and require Congress to vote on all recommendations, so no single special interest could fight for pet projects.

Pass a Constitutional Line-Item Veto to Reduce Corporate Welfare and Excessive Spending. Under Kerry’s plan, the President would identify wasteful spending items in the budget and submit the list to Congress to vote on in an up-or-down fashion – saving billions of dollars.

The solid points in there are that he's going to raise taxes on corporations, raise taxes on people who make most of their money on stock sales, and raise taxes on people who make over 200k. At the same time he's going to change the rules to require a higher ratio of approving votes before (new) deficit spending can happen.

Most of the rest is double-speak that roughly translates to "I'll take a look at stuff and fix it."

[Vintage]

It all sounds ok, but I hope he doesn't go haywire on tax raising. I would not apreciate a tax raise on gasoline, postage, or other every-day items.

Also, its hard to use new tax money to pay off old debts. Most of the time, it all goes into more spending. I would not mind a temporary tax for the sole purpose of reducing this nation's debt.

~Vintage

[cxwq]

Indeed. The last time the government cut spending from one year to the next was 1965. So, it's very likely that our expenses will go up - especially given the current debt servicing costs - the question is how much.

Bush's current budget projections for 2009 have the govt somehow collecting $834b more in taxes and spending $696b more than the numbers posted in 2003.

For comparison, not even during the height of the dot-com boom (with a pro-tax president and insane economic growth) did tax collection escalate that fast, and his proposed spending increases are more than double that of any prior president, as a percentage.

Edit: All those numbers are from the proposed and historical tables in Bush's current budget.

[Oroku Saki]

Actually, Vintage, most of the tax cuts Bush did was for larger corporations and higher class individuals, so I don't really think any of his tax cuts affected the rest of the US. Even if the government was to get rid of the tax cuts, I wouldn't mind, as long as they spend the money wisely.

[merlinski]

Actually, Vintage, most of the tax cuts Bush did was for larger corporations and higher class individuals, so I don't really think any of his tax cuts affected the rest of the US. Even if the government was to get rid of the tax cuts, I wouldn't mind, as long as they spend the money wisely.

Not only that, but he also increased the payroll tax. Considering that the poorest sectors of the country pay most of their taxes in payroll, not income, taxes, they actually pay more under Bush.

[Vintage]

Merlinski, I did a google search on "bush raise payroll" and did not find a single page that said he raised the payroll tax.

Both income and payroll taxes favor one wealth bracket or another. Income taxes affect higher paid citizens more, payroll taxes affect lower income citizens more. However, payroll is for Social Security and Medicare, so it would only seem likely that the rate should be the same for each person. Why should wealthier people pay so much more for their retirement, when little of their money actually makes it back to them? Their money goes into the hands of everyone else.

Oroku, I believe Bush's tax cuts were flat percentages across the board. Those who paid more taxes got more back. I am not positive on this, but I will research it further.

~Vintage

Edit: I did some quick research, and found that the lower the income, the higher the percent tax cut. Just because the more money someone earns (and pays taxes with) means he gets more tax relief, doesn't mean the rich are benifiting more. The lower your income, the higher percent of your taxes is refunded to you.

Edited by Vintage, 04 May 2004 - 11:06 PM.

[cxwq]

Edit:  I did some quick research, and found that the lower the income, the higher the percent tax cut.  Just because the more money someone earns (and pays taxes with) means he gets more tax relief, doesn't mean the rich are benifiting more.  The lower your income, the higher percent of your taxes is refunded to you.

Not quite. I'll try to be reasonably even-handed and stick to the facts here. All of these numbers are either from Bush's budget (already linked above) or the 2004 IRS tax tables.

Tax Brackets

Pre-Bush  2004    Net    Net as a % of original
-------   ----    ---    -----
n/a       10%     -5%     -33%
15%       15%      0%       0%
28%       25%     -3%     -10.7%
31%       28%     -3%      -9.7%
36%       33%     -3%      -8.3%
39.6%     35%     -4.6%   -11.6%

So the rediculously poor - those who make less than $7k this year - do quite well with a 33% reduction in their tax rate.

The poor - those who make less than $29k this year - get absolutely no tax relief.

// note: following is the part where you're correct

The middle class gets a bigger tax cut (as a percentage) than the mildly wealthy.

// note: following is the part that pisses off lots of people

The fabulously wealthy (over $319k) got the second biggest tax cut (as a percentage) of all.



Okay, that's just the tax bracket changes. Here are the full tax 'relief' details with projected costs to the government over the next four years:

-30,781 Accelerate 10-percent individual income tax rate bracket expansion
-58,102 Accelerate reduction in individual income tax rates
-54,786 Accelerate marriage penalty relief
-41,363 Accelerate increase in child tax credit
-140,232 Eliminate the double taxation of corporate earnings
-8,372 Increase expensing for small business
-25,818 Provide minimum tax relief to individuals

Those numbers are in millions and the negatives mean the people win! Well, sort of. The first one expands the 10% tax bracket to people earning $7k this year... but puts it back to $6k next year. The second item has already been explained above. The third item is ostensibly 'fair' but tends to hurt poor people more. The forth item benefits everyone with kids. The fifth item benefits those with substantial stock investment income. The sixth item benefits small business owners and rich people who pretend to be small businesses. The seventh item is good for many people but reverts to old rates next year.

So, in summary:

Of the $359 billion in tax 'relief' over the next four years, $56 billion that is good for everybody ends after this year.

Of the $303 billion in tax 'relief' that will continue past this year, nearly half of it ($148 billion) goes to major investors and business owners.

About $96 billion goes to people who are married and/or have kids.

Only about $58 billion goes to your income tax percentage reductions, with a bias towards those who make less than $7k or more than $319k.