Indeed they are...yet you were citing election results and the authority of the majority....when it suited your argument, anyway..

Didn't say he was stupid. I said losing him would not be a great loss...and I used the plural "Clintons". Getting a big scholarship isn't evidence of genius so much as political acumen, which Slick Willy certainly does have. Gates isn't stupid either, but he's certainly not a genius. And Fisher sure looks like an idiot savant from here.

You show me where the constitution empowers the government to redistribute the wealth of people who "have too much". You keep playing this shell game between "the government should do it" and then when pressed for the source of that authority you fall back on "Oh, but the gluttons should do it on their own...that they don't is evidence of exactly how evil they really are."

I'm not willing to chase you around that bush yet again; this is where I came in.

You can't feed large groups of the homeless in public parks in Dallas or Orlando. Let's keep our facts straight.

And those higher on the ladder don't need the increased income, the lower paid ones do.

If you want to see income distributed on the basis of need (however you calculate *that*), you'll have to go someplace with a different economic system. Let us know how you make out...if you can find a computer there. Maybe you should take one with you, and hope nobody there "needs" it more than you do.

I believe that poor people have no entitlement to the money that other people made fair and square, but I also believe that people with the ability to do so should help others as much as they can, every chance they get.

You are right, Maggie. I did get sidetracked, responding to your heartless assertions. I still beleive that, for those who want to be a productive part of society, there have to be jobs that will make their quality of life better having a job than being on welfare, and that increased income needs to come from the folks who already make a lot of money. For those who absolutely cannot hold a job that will support their family's basic needs, there needs to be a safety net. It seems to make sense for government to provide that safety net. If you would like to set up a system of private providers, have at it. There must be a mechanism to weed out those who can, but choose not to be a productive member of society.

"General Welfare"

BTW, why don't you bitch about the redistributing everybody's wealth, whether we have too much, or not enough, to programs like the Osprey? You have this phobia about people getting something that they didn't earn, I have issues with the defense department pissing away millions, with virtually nothing to show for it but failure and dead bodies. What makes your "general welfare" different from my "general welfare"?

Off topic, snide, pointless, draws conclusion that was not inferred, and typically Maggie.

You assert that there is a need, but you want "somebody else" to meet that need...because there "has to be a solution", and then when somebody doesn't do it for you they're all evil, greedy, heartless gluttons. Honest, it's not the government's job to meet every need.
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Helping others is admirable...but remeber not every charitable act is actually "help".

You have to examine actions intended to help to make sure that they don't have negative unintended consequences. A heroin junkie may have a "need" for a fix...but is giving him one "helping" him? Especially if you're not intending to supply him with heroin for life? Fair minds could differ. It is not by accident that physicians have the aphorism: "first, do no harm".

Government agencies in particular are not at all good at examining the consequences of their actions, and a value judgement as to what is "help" in any given case must stand up to scrutiny later in a court of law, to respond to a complaint of "discrimination" if you don't give citizen X exactly what you gave citizen Y.

"...provide for the common defense..."

Not at all pointless. My point is that you're taking "need" as an absolute requirement that the government, somebody else, or some magical Mommy In The Sky must respond to, like the kindergarden child who has discovered that "it's not fair!" is a plausible objection to any outcome he doesn't like and reason to invoke debate.

Were you really born in 1959, as your profile claims?

The real inroads into the educational system by the socialists really started stacking up a couple years later than that, but Spexx is within the demographic ...