I am getting tired of wondering this, but why is it acceptable for

[C......N......C]

a nation to help those that don't need help and lay a bigger burden on the masses. Somewhere somone has got to say "I've had enough and I not taking anymore". If that's you let me know, I'll help. And I mean I'll really help.

[jobycom]

1. I guess it would help if you were specific about what you mean.

:shrug:

[C......N......C]

3. Making excuses to give bailout money to people who are squandering it.

[C......N......C]

4. And I am deeply bothered by Darfur, Congo and Sudan and other situations

like that. Generally oppression of the poor and helpless. And abused women and children. Ridicule of the challenged. I guess that I am just really PO'd and upset about injustice, any shape or form.

[underpants]

2. Nobody turns down free money

especially when they pay people to give them back more than they chipped in to begin with

[Coyote_Bandit]

5. Two Answers

(1) As a practical matter we tend to prefer those who are like us. Because those who have position and power tend to like and understand folks who are like them they tend to act in ways that benefit those folks often at the expense of other folks.

(2) Philosophically, there is a conflict as to whether government should serve the interests of the individual or of the majority of the group that makes up society. In a democratic republic, we presume that folks elect the representatives who they think will protect their interests. That suggests that folks either do not consider themselves part of the masses - or they make poor choices when they vote.

I tend to think both of these factors are at play.

[C......N......C]

7. Your # 2 identifies the problem.

We elect and send people to Washington who them become different and respond to funded interests. Then we have to live with that's who you voted for. And we accept it.

[Journeyman]

6. Alexis d'Tocqueville believed democracy in America would last until . . .

the people discovered they could vote themselves money.

For a century or more, the belief was that the demise would be instigated by the masses, the "have nots" who would demand legislation to serve their needs. Many used this fear to urge action against social programs, which were seen as a means for the masses to rob the public till. More far sighted people recognized, from about the time of the Gilded Age and especially in the decades since WW2, that the greater threat lies in the corporate plunder of the treasury. A pittance for the common man, a fortune for the fortunate.


"When (Americans) discover that they can vote themselves money from the public till, the experiment will be over." ~ Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, (1835, 1840)