Dissonance

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The compassionate conservative says government programs are inevitably full of waste because of their nature and will never do a truly good job of providing for the people.

There are 7367 employees at the Veterans Administration making more than $100,000.00 per year.

[wolf]

At least I remember my response originally posted to this one ...

I'm gonna bet that most of those people aren't the doctors providing direct care.

Note to UT: trying to post this I got stuck in a loop with the "30 seconds between posts" timer. It wouldn't let me post at all!!

I even dragged out the stopwatch and let it go for a full minute before trying to post.

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

There are 7367 employees at the Veterans Administration making more than $100,000.00 per year.

And do you know what they do at the Vets. Adim? Well, the joke goes, "What has arms and legs and flies? The dumpster at the VA!" If they can't cure it (and they can't) they cut it off!

Originally Posted by Brianna

And do you know what they do at the Vets. Adim? Well, the joke goes, "What has arms and legs and flies? The dumpster at the VA!" If they can't cure it (and they can't) they cut it off!

And I might add, the Vet in need of help that they send flying out the door. The VA is very inconsistent. If a vet gets let go from the service because of a service connected disability, they'll bend over backwards trying to help. But if a vet is already out of the military with a service connected disability, he'll have to go through 7 different hells trying to prove his case. And the quality of medical care dispensed by the VA mostly sucks. But back to the topic at hand:

Originally Posted by Smoothmoniker

And therein lies the fundamental difference between liberalism and conservatism. Liberal ideology holds that it is the function of the state to change the face of the nation. They believe that social engineering is a valid function of the government. Conservative ideology holds that it is the function of the state to serve the limited universal goals of the nation as efficiently as possible. Justice, common defense, education.

I tried to reply to this, SM, just as the Cellar had its massive meltdown, so I don't think anybody saw what I wrote before it became a million dancing electrons somewhere in the Philly area.

Please define what you mean by "social engineering." The term sounds Orwellian to me. Would you consider compulsory education to be social engineering? Certainly, compulsory education has changed the face of society. Today most Americans can at least read the names of those whom they vote for. Our national Interstate system greatly adds to the ease with which citizens can travel from one area to another. We are a far more mobile society than we would be without it. Public libraries allow even the poorest citizen access to the great works of literature, to the latest information on science and technology, and to the complete set of both our federal and state laws. Knowledge is power, and the public library is there to empower any individual with information that only the wealthy would have access to otherwise. All these things sound like social engineering to me. Are you against them?

I couldn't agree with you more that change first begins in the hearts and minds of the citizens of a democracy. Government imposed change is little short of tyranny. However, isn't it tyranny, also, when the government refuses to make changes that a majority of the people want? Something like 62% of all Americans are in favor of universal health care*, yet the government is making no moves in this area due to the fact that special interests with plenty of money are in control of the congress. I fear our democratic ideal is quickly becoming a thing of the past.


* I had the citation for this in my original post which got gobbled up by the cyber demons. If you are interested, I'll track it down again.

[DanaC]

You raise an interesting point Marichiko. I wonder if America would be the powerhouse it currently is in the world, if she had SubSaharan African levels of literacy.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Of course not.