greenstate:

Last week, Paul Ryan gave an interview in which, defending his position that there should be no excuses for abortion, he referred to rape as a “method of conception.”

Wow, right? Talk about a benign euphemism. Rape —RAPE! — is now a “method of conception.” You know, like love-making, just without the love.

There could be no greater testament to the utter abdication of responsibility by what passes for a “news” media in America in 2012 than that, despite the grotesquerie of this cavalierly callous comment, chances are better than good that this is the first you’re hearing of it.

Here, watch it — and try to figure out why this has gotten NO MAINSTREAM MEDIA play (not even here at the Huffington Post) despite it being, to my mind, a far more offensive remark than Todd Akin’s imbecilic blurt of last weekend. What, are we tired of stupid remarks about rape now, so Ryan gets a free pass?

Given the demands for Akin’s resignation from a mere Senate race when his musings on “legitimate rape” were publicized, what do you imagine the reaction would be if people were as familiar with VP wannabe Ryan’s stunning statement? Might there be a cacophony of outrage? Might there be calls for his resignation from the ticket? Might there be a focus on how fundamentally oblivious these people who would make our laws are to not just women’s but humans’ rights and dignity? Sure, there might, but then of course people would have to have heard about it.

According to the man who would be the proverbial heartbeat away from the White House, and who in any event would — given Romney’s utter hollowness — have an inordinate influence on the judicial appointments that will determine how much freedom our children get to live under, RAPE = “METHOD OF CONCEPTION.” And yet, unless you’re a frequenter of one of a dozen or so lefty blogs — or my friend on Facebook — you probably knew nothing about it.

I truly despair for the country my 14-year-old daughter is inheriting. That a remark this intensely revealing of the danger posed by this ticket can go basically unreported is as nauseating to me as the quote itself.

think-progress:

Need we remind you, this is the second time this year someone’s committed a violent act against a cat to send a political message.

WHOOOO?!?!?!?! Cats, man, they don’t deserve it.

calvin-and-blank:

fawfulfan:

calvin-and-blank:

Are you kidding me? Look at your own words:

One, you collectively labeled the rich, as if to say that they are all money grubbing scrooges.

Then you say it’s greedy to keep money you earn.

And then you say it’s not greedy to take their money.

The article gave one solution: To mandate that people with more give more to the government (which will at one point, after half is given to the military, reach the less fortunate in the form of inefficient public services)

I have a solution: how about people get to give to organizations as they want? Or they can volunteer for services of their choice? It could start with you and I.

Why must we hold a gun at people’s head under the auspices of “generosity?”

I’ll freely admit the name of this post was overly simplistic. But the point of the article was, the wealthy in America have made a big mistake by assuming that their hard work and their ingenuity made their success somehow inevitable, and that the misfortune of others was self-inflicted through lack of motivation and abilities. The truth is, there is a randomness to society…two people could work just as hard but they might not both reap the same rewards. The welfare state is fundamentally about compensating for this randomness. Now, in a more technical sense, I wouldn’t characterize the Republican railing against higher taxes on the rich as “greed”…more as a “lack of empathy”.

Nevertheless, you do raise a good point. Even if we accept that the welfare state is necessary, how can we trust that it is using our tax dollars in a way that most benefits the poor? Or anything else that we care about, for that matter? If the government wastes it such that, say only 5 cents out of every dollar you are taxed goes to fight hunger, whereas thirty cents goes to defense spending and another thirty cents goes to government workers’ pensions, perhaps we do have a right to be angry about our taxes, since they aren’t being used to support the things we want.

But that’s why we have a democracy. The whole point is “taxation with representation”. The appropriate response to wasted tax dollars should not be to rush to cut taxes…it should be to vote for people who promise to focus on priorities better. If we elect the right people, they will change the tax code so that more of our money goes to things that we all agree matter.

This is one of the biggest problems in the American government…politicians and political parties get swept into office for some specific reason, and all too frequently they forget what that reason was. The Democrats were swept into power in 2006 because people were fed up with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that was never the Democratic Congress’s priority. Then, the Republicans managed a partial takeover in 2010 because people were fed up with the gridlock and lack of progress. It was actually the Republicans’ fault, and the Democrats merely took the blame because our country tends to hold the majority party accountable for whatever is wrong, so as a result of the 2010 elections, the things voters set out to fix got even worse!

I am against your idea that taxes are the only way to help the less fortunate. The taxes we should have should only be towards paying for the services that the government gives us all e.g. a national defense, the politicians doing their job, etc. For services to the poor/less fortunate, it should be out of our own goodwill. I’m okay with the way taxes are instated (representation) but I don’t like the idea of taxation being used for everything under the sun.

I disagree. Taxes aren’t the only way to help the less fortunate, but they are the most stable way. If everyone just gives to the charities they want when they want without taxes then important issues and people in need will fall through the cracks. All of those republicans who feel the poor don’t deserve their money will take the money that would have been going to taxes and pocket it or they’ll spend it elsewhere. Maybe they’ll spend it on some other charity that they feel does deserve the money, and that’s great, I don’t necessarily have anything against that. The problem here is that even if government is inefficient, which it is (you’ve made your point), leaving it up to the whim of society is even more inefficient. I know there are people who don’t donate because they know their taxes already do and would be willing to help after lowered taxes, but are you willing to risk that those people outnumber the ones who won’t donate at all? Or outnumber those who are donating now, but won’t donate more to make up for the loss? Or that any donations, even though well-intentioned, will be spread as evenly as they should be? If we leave it up to the individual, then yes I will donate to a charity, and more likely to a charity that provides a large variety of services, but will you? Before we hand things over to an individual who doesn’t have the ability to see the trends or the way everyone’s money is distributed (the big picture) then I propose surveys and studies should be done asking questions like: Would you donate? What would be some organizations or charities you would donate to? How much would you be willing to donate on a monthly basis? A yearly basis? - And even then that survey and study should be taken with a huge grain of salt because everyone likes to appear more generous than they really are. You said “It could start with you and I” Well has it started with you? Do you already donate? Or know of some places that should you have more money you would donate to? And would your choice of organization be affected should you learn that a large number of people are donating large sums of money to that charity, but relatively few people are donating only small sums to another charity? Will that other charity be labeled as apparently unimportant and whoever is affected will slip through the cracks, or would you be willing to change your mind? The other problem here is that charities and organizations are already fighting to get our donations, spending way too much on advertising and not enough on what they’re actually supposed to be alleviating. Do we really want to exacerbate that issue? If completely left to our decision between completely privatized options then yes, I’m sure many more options will magically pop up almost overnight. There are still some issues though. A) We still don’t know how much more, or even if more people will donate. B) These people will be fighting tooth and nail to get our attention even more than they are now because there will be much more competition. And so in the end it will come down to who makes the better argument, who has the nicer commercial, who lies more effectively about how little money they have and even more effectively about how much their cause needs yours? And those organizations who win the popularity contest will inevitably be the ones who had the most money to spend on catching your attention to begin with. It could effectively end up a well-intentioned corporate america where a handful of organizations get the vast majority of donations and completely control the distribution of that money. Another issue could be that one minute a charity can be raking in plenty to further it’s cause, but only until the next big important issue comes along and steals the limelight. For a few months this poor girl will get food, but next month the popular craze may be all about giving to the conservation effort. This is not the way things should turn out and there are way too many assumptions being made. Without government assistance I think aid will become even more unstable, even more inefficient, and possibly even less funded. Taxes for welfare started for a reason - Not enough people were giving enough to help those who needed the welfare. If enough donations were made back then Charles Dickens wouldn’t have had enough material for the book and the government wouldn’t have felt the need to start taxing the citizens for it. I think republicans show that society hasn’t changed all that much in its regards for the poor since then.