listening to the Velvet Underground makes me think about how odd my life has been

[mynameisandey]

I lived on the east coast, in Western American, and Middle America. I've lived in a minivan to protest capitalism and voted Republican. I've spent entire summers watching television, and others catching rattlesnakes and riding a bike hundreds of miles. I've loved women, I've hated women. I've been cold, I've been hot. I've been consistent, I'

Comments

Re: I want a brain and a heart.

[anonymous]

I think the idea of people starving in the U.S. is an extraordinarily foreign concept to my way of thinking. In our capitalistic nation where we've found that agriculture production great exceeds any of our possible needs, I can't imagine how this could happen. I support abolishing the welfare state in theory (it would never actually happen because the government needs the capability of providing assistance in extreme circumstances, and therefore ends up providing assistance in too many circumstance) because I believe that people are good enough that if their money was returned to them, they would spend it on charity. How much charity is already available? The problem is that many people see other people in trouble and assume, "Well, I'm sure the government is doing something." If society knew that the government wasn't doing anything, the movement would be, "Oh, I need to do something." This highly Christianized nation has no problem being independently benevolent. I really believe strongly that it is not the business of the state to provide welfare, but the business of the churches.

Beyond that, imagine how much money would be saved in the process. The IRS eats up nearly 25% of all of the taxes we pay into the government. That's right! One fourth of your taxes are lost in a single bureaucratic process. People are by far much more capable of spending their own money.

Re: I want a brain and a heart.

[msblackandwhite]

BTW, that's my thought above. Damn password is too frikin' difficult to remember.

Re: I want a brain and a heart.

[mynameisandey]

I'm sorry dear but children starve in small appalachian communities (albeit much less than other nations). I always enjoy a good libertarian argument like that, though. As a liberal, I don't have any problem with the concept of taxes, in fact they're quite necissary. As an independant, I'm not sure if churches or government can do a better job of welfare. You can't legislate churches, and it's pretty liberal of you to think that people are good enough at heart to do this on their own.

I don't think that's a bad thing though. Case and point: The LDS church. Every member pays a mere 10% of their increase to the church. In addition to this we fast two meals and twenty-four hours on the first sunday of each month. This is done for spiritual edification and the money saved not eating is given to those who cannot afford food, a double whammy. Members may also make charitable donations as much as their heart desires.
We do not have paid ministry, so with all this money we build churches and temples all over the world to accomadate our members, send food, medicine, and other nessecities to underprivileged peoples, and have a strong food storage and welfare system for our members who have difficulty making due on their own. What is missing in funding these governmental beaurocratic processes is the norm of efficancy. With an efficiant use of funds, people can pay much less and get much more. If you ask me the spirit and guidence of God is the greatest help, but the idea supports my basic philosophy that it's not always where it comes from, but how it's done that makes government good.

andey's comments on andey

[anonymous]

I just realized this line doesn't make any sense: "the spirit and guidence of God is the greatest help, but the idea supports my basic philosophy that it's not always where it comes from, but how it's done that makes government good." what I meant to say is that even though the spirit and guidence of God are the greatest help, we should learn from him and what is to be learned (in this case) is that tax monies can, and always should be used efficiantly and benevolently.