Andy’s whereIstand Blog

The functions of social security are facially simple: keep the populace socially secure. Unfortunately the program has been the alarmist hot-button for those with lingering fears of socialist tendencies. This is obviously not one of the issue upon which I agree with the Libertarians, and the program has been so mis-managed that at times the whole thing has been sabotaged and rather than turning us all pinko actually went the opposite way and proved the excesses of bureaucratic corruption - one more tax pool to draw from for no-bid contract public works. I know - paranoia. Thing is, Social Security is one of those laudable programs that grounds our wrote American idealism into actual practice. Like Affirmative action, it is one of those things that says "look, I know we are all created equal in theory, but just in case that isn’t true, in case that is unknowable at any point, we will not leave to starve and die, because you are our a citizen in the greatest social experiment ever." Affirmative Action doesn’t work as well as a Social Security system, but it does seem to recognize that there are people in America disenfranchised by circumstance and law: ex. single mothers, and the very old with no living relatives. Its the program that makes sure people aren’t punished for out-living their friends and family or for choosing to live like hermits.

We live in a welfare state, and that’s a good thing. We got laziness in places, but give me that over "compassionate conservatism" or an ownership society which will help you help yourself, sure, unless you fail in which case it will leave you with a shrug and grin, saying "oh well, social Darwinism." In a way Social Security is an on-going secular ritual connecting the generations - those who pay with those who collect, one of the best uses of money I ever heard of, and it gives us all something we can look forward to, and at the end say, okay so even if its mandated, maybe my government and my people do care.

Also it comes from the ideal that is the reason no one in America dies of starvation (unless they choose to): charity is everywhere. We got some hungry people, true, but no one is starving. Besides, we have a huge middle class and social security mostly supplements invested retirement accounts. We have a class system, and there are poor people, but no one in America is impoverished. Even the Republicans know it would look bad for their constituency. On those late-night Christian Children’s Fund commercials, never will you see an American child sitting in some gutter, those kids that are saved with 83 cents a day, man if you lower the poverty line 83 cents a day per person then compare that to Central American and Eastern Bloc countries with citizens feeding their families on something like $60 a month. I hate to break out a personal anecdote, but my mother’s family is incredibly huge. She is the youngest of fourteen children, and she has risen from her background of American poverty right up to the middle class. Without some sort of welfare state, her college education would not have been possible, neither would Horatio Alger’s American Dream.

We are a welfare state indeed, but one that needs some repair. Social Security is part of that. Minimum wage is another part. Government grants and scholarships are yet another part. Capitalism doesn’t just run rampant without check, and we need more of these things to continue this system. This isn’t Sweden or Canada with tons of taxation and awesome healthcare, but this also isn’t a horrifying ownership state either - to be that, we’d have to imperialism-it-up and step on some other foreign polities to get to that point and function. I’m a fan or going more in the direction of Sweden without inheriting their ridiculous suicide rate; better healthcare is more humane and privatization would leave most of our people behind. Social Security is not just a safety net, it is a right that should exist in a work-emphasized society.

Check what the AARP has to say.

This has been Andy D.

The functions of social security are facially simple: keep the populace socially secure. Unfortunately the program has been the alarmist hot-button for those with lingering fears of socialist tendencies. This is obviously not one of the issue upon which I agree with the Libertarians, and the program has been so mis-managed that at times the whole thing has been sabotaged and rather than turning us all pinko actually went the opposite way and proved the excesses of bureaucratic corruption - one more tax pool to draw from for no-bid contract public works. I know - paranoia. Thing is, Social Security is one of those laudable programs that grounds our wrote American idealism into actual practice. Like Affirmative action, it is one of those things that says "look, I know we are all created equal in theory, but just in case that isn’t true, in case that is unknowable at any point, we will not leave to starve and die, because you are our a citizen in the greatest social experiment ever." Affirmative Action doesn’t work as well as a Social Security system, but it does seem to recognize that there are people in America disenfranchised by circumstance and law: ex. single mothers, and the very old with no living relatives. Its the program that makes sure people aren’t punished for out-living their friends and family or for choosing to live like hermits.

We live in a welfare state, and that’s a good thing. We got laziness in places, but give me that over "compassionate conservatism" or an ownership society which will help you help yourself, sure, unless you fail in which case it will leave you with a shrug and grin, saying "oh well, social Darwinism." In a way Social Security is an on-going secular ritual connecting the generations - those who pay with those who collect, one of the best uses of money I ever heard of, and it gives us all something we can look forward to, and at the end say, okay so even if its mandated, maybe my government and my people do care.

Also it comes from the ideal that is the reason no one in America dies of starvation (unless they choose to): charity is everywhere. We got some hungry people, true, but no one is starving. Besides, we have a huge middle class and social security mostly supplements invested retirement accounts. We have a class system, and there are poor people, but no one in America is impoverished. Even the Republicans know it would look bad for their constituency. On those late-night Christian Children’s Fund commercials, never will you see an American child sitting in some gutter, those kids that are saved with 83 cents a day, man if you lower the poverty line 83 cents a day per person then compare that to Central American and Eastern Bloc countries with citizens feeding their families on something like $60 a month. I hate to break out a personal anecdote, but my mother’s family is incredibly huge. She is the youngest of fourteen children, and she has risen from her background of American poverty right up to the middle class. Without some sort of welfare state, her college education would not have been possible, neither would Horatio Alger’s American Dream.

We are a welfare state indeed, but one that needs some repair. Social Security is part of that. Minimum wage is another part. Government grants and scholarships are yet another part. Capitalism doesn’t just run rampant without check, and we need more of these things to continue this system. This isn’t Sweden or Canada with tons of taxation and awesome healthcare, but this also isn’t a horrifying ownership state either - to be that, we’d have to imperialism-it-up and step on some other foreign polities to get to that point and function. I’m a fan or going more in the direction of Sweden without inheriting their ridiculous suicide rate; better healthcare is more humane and privatization would leave most of our people behind. Social Security is not just a safety net, it is a right that should exist in a work-emphasized society.

Check what the AARP has to say.

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• What are the functions of Social Security?

If the legislature does define marriage in the Constitution it will be the first time it is mentioned at all in the document, and it will most definitely conflict with the 19th amendment, that which gave suffrage to women. It appears that facially, marriage is not a right guaranteed to anyone. What good is it to define it then? The only construal for it as a right comes from the right to privacy or the pursuit of happiness, and Scalia has repeatedly attacked , and historically, such a right has been denied to and between certain classes of people. How is this different?

This has been Andy D.

If the legislature does define marriage in the Constitution it will be the first time it is mentioned at all in the document, and it will most definitely conflict with the 19th amendment, that which gave suffrage to women. It appears that facially, marriage is not a right guaranteed to anyone. What good is it to define it then? The only construal for it as a right comes from the right to privacy or the pursuit of happiness, and Scalia has repeatedly attacked , and historically, such a right has been denied to and between certain classes of people. How is this different?

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• Should the U.S. Constitution be amended to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman?

I think the Tenth Amendment might come in here, but either way, I don’t think the courts are the place to fight his unless of course the federal government tries to enforce it, then it might be unconstitutional. I was under the impression that education is under the purview of the states alone. I believe in a strong federal government as well, but when it comes to something like education, I must take exception. Being fresh out of the academic meat-grinding factory, I tend to see all educational endeavors as works-in-progress if not outright experiments. I think this is the way it should be, because it opens the field for different methods of doing something that, as it stands, is an awkward and dangerous process. School is a massive force in the formation of relationships with self and the production of knowledge. It took me sixteen years of school for me to learn how to learn! I think having a state-level difference ensures we have about fifty different processes going on that we can compare and that will compare with each other. Standardized testing is not the way. It really test nothing but the taking of the test itself and the wrote memorization of facts and even wrote memorization of processes. Sorry to go Po-Mo, but education is a Post-Modern enterprise anyway. The Modernists failed in so many ways - Piaget was a twerp. Now is all this legal? I don’t know, but education (and the justification for the existence of the Senate) might be one of the few States Rights causes I would take up. Now, ask me about the Electoral College…

This has been Andy D.

I think the Tenth Amendment might come in here, but either way, I don’t think the courts are the place to fight his unless of course the federal government tries to enforce it, then it might be unconstitutional. I was under the impression that education is under the purview of the states alone. I believe in a strong federal government as well, but when it comes to something like education, I must take exception. Being fresh out of the academic meat-grinding factory, I tend to see all educational endeavors as works-in-progress if not outright experiments. I think this is the way it should be, because it opens the field for different methods of doing something that, as it stands, is an awkward and dangerous process. School is a massive force in the formation of relationships with self and the production of knowledge. It took me sixteen years of school for me to learn how to learn! I think having a state-level difference ensures we have about fifty different processes going on that we can compare and that will compare with each other. Standardized testing is not the way. It really test nothing but the taking of the test itself and the wrote memorization of facts and even wrote memorization of processes. Sorry to go Po-Mo, but education is a Post-Modern enterprise anyway. The Modernists failed in so many ways - Piaget was a twerp. Now is all this legal? I don’t know, but education (and the justification for the existence of the Senate) might be one of the few States Rights causes I would take up. Now, ask me about the Electoral College…

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• Should states be forced to fund the federally mandated No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act?

So I say yes to this, giving faith-based initiatives the benefit of the doubt that not all believers have to be evangelizers; example: I belong to the YMCA, which is certainly one of the most secular of all religious organizations, I mean the C stands for Christian correct? I do my ellipticals just fine, without seeing one crucifix or listening to one person ask me if I found Jesus yet, you know in that cosmic game of hide-and-seek I guess we’ve been playing. That said, it gets difficult if the faith-based organization has ANY branch that evangelizes, so like any Baptist or Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness or Scientologist organization I would be wary of accepting government funds, because while they may indeed keep a set of books that says the social good and spiritual-trying-to-do-good departments separate, it is part of these organizations’ nature to have some part of them spread the WORD. So, I would have to count those guys out altogether, unfortunately, then these guys would freak out and screaming religious persecution. So is it all or nothing?

Absolutely not. If I were dying of some horrific colonic problem (why not?) I would have no problem with an ambulance rushing my impacted ass (literally?) to St. Mary’s of the Divine Roundhouse Kick if it would save me life simply because I know there won’t be a gang of nuns greeting me when the Demerol wears off to finish on my soul what they began on my life. Catholic and Lutheran and Jewish hospitals are all over the place and none of them try to convert, or hold their surgeries contingent on conversion. Hospitals have to get some sort of government funding and considerations.

I apply the same principles to other social good done by believers. As long as the aid and work they provide does not come contingent upon conversion, then please, do some good and here’s some dough to help out. But if I catch you trying to save one soul, I will snatch my tax-paying money out of your blessed hands faster than a missionary can give a small-pox infected blanket to a Native American. sucka!

This has been Andy D

So I say yes to this, giving faith-based initiatives the benefit of the doubt that not all believers have to be evangelizers; example: I belong to the YMCA, which is certainly one of the most secular of all religious organizations, I mean the C stands for Christian correct? I do my ellipticals just fine, without seeing one crucifix or listening to one person ask me if I found Jesus yet, you know in that cosmic game of hide-and-seek I guess we’ve been playing. That said, it gets difficult if the faith-based organization has ANY branch that evangelizes, so like any Baptist or Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness or Scientologist organization I would be wary of accepting government funds, because while they may indeed keep a set of books that says the social good and spiritual-trying-to-do-good departments separate, it is part of these organizations’ nature to have some part of them spread the WORD. So, I would have to count those guys out altogether, unfortunately, then these guys would freak out and screaming religious persecution. So is it all or nothing?

Absolutely not. If I were dying of some horrific colonic problem (why not?) I would have no problem with an ambulance rushing my impacted ass (literally?) to St. Mary’s of the Divine Roundhouse Kick if it would save me life simply because I know there won’t be a gang of nuns greeting me when the Demerol wears off to finish on my soul what they began on my life. Catholic and Lutheran and Jewish hospitals are all over the place and none of them try to convert, or hold their surgeries contingent on conversion. Hospitals have to get some sort of government funding and considerations.

I apply the same principles to other social good done by believers. As long as the aid and work they provide does not come contingent upon conversion, then please, do some good and here’s some dough to help out. But if I catch you trying to save one soul, I will snatch my tax-paying money out of your blessed hands faster than a missionary can give a small-pox infected blanket to a Native American. sucka!

This has been Andy D

whereIstand Tags

• Should government funding be available to religious organizations for the purpose of performing a social good, e.g., feeding the homeless?

Why is government in the business of marriage? It has always been a religious institution, and any rights the state of marriage affords to any citizens should already be afforded them from birth or socialization, doing otherwise is discriminatory and a gross example of inequality that has gotten by existing long enough. Another issue to discuss are those religious groups that claim their rights being violated by not having same-sex marriages they ordain being recognized by the state.

This has been Andy D.

Why is government in the business of marriage? It has always been a religious institution, and any rights the state of marriage affords to any citizens should already be afforded them from birth or socialization, doing otherwise is discriminatory and a gross example of inequality that has gotten by existing long enough. Another issue to discuss are those religious groups that claim their rights being violated by not having same-sex marriages they ordain being recognized by the state.

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• Should the U.S. Constitution be amended to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman?