Lawmakers Find $21 a Week Doesn't Buy a Lot of Groceries

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by squirrely girl

VERY true. however, i'm just a bit of a purist. say you're liberal, say your conservative. delineate between the two on as many individual issues as ya want. just don't call yourself something if you don't actually hold to it.

- marissa

Marissa: I do absolutely hold true to MANY libertarian ideals -- just not all. I consider myself a member of the libertarian wing of the Republican party.

I don't want to be insulting or anything (and this very well may be perceived that way), but in my mind, subscribing 100% to any party agenda is akin to letting someone else think for you.

Since I'm pretty well qualified to do my own thinking, I'm going to fail any political reliability test you put in front of me. As you may have perceived, when it comes to able bodied adults who abuse our welfare system, you'll find me a tad to the right of Atilla the Hun on the political scale... cut off the money, let God sort 'em out... when it comes to impoverished kids, I'm a big pinko commie -- let the state take these kids into custody and spend bazillions of bucks making sure these kids turn out better than their parents.

I view poverty in the long term as America's most important war -- beating, or at least managing poverty is essential to our continued survival and our continued freedom. Throughout history, a wide gap between the poor and the elite (and the lack of a substantial middle class) has always meant social upheaval. As with every war, there are a variety of tactics which can be used... all with differently effective and all with their own political consequences. One thing is for certain though -- if we continue to do what is most politically expedient at this time (i.e., nothing), we'll end up with a much worse problem than we have right now. While this paragraph might look like the preface to some sort of spiel glorifying socialism, it's not.

You might imagine that I think socialism ignores the root of this problem -- that people don't want to work. We have to make them work if they want to eat, have shelter, etc. To me, it's (almost) that simple.