Ron Paul's candidacy

FlexGunship

I watched a woman get into a fight with a cashier because she wasn't allowed to use food stamps to buy Red Bull.

That really happened. In real life. Real people were involved. What possible role could Red Bull (an expensive energy drink) play in a balanced tight-budget diet?

That's not necessarily true. That's like saying "a Republican would never raise taxes." Or "a Democrat would never cut entitlements." Practicality and ideology often clash. In the case of welfare, even a libertarian would be forced to provide something. It might look different, come in a different amount, or seek to accomplish a different goal... but it wouldn't just disappear.

MarcoD

Well, she has some right to spend her 'money' in her own way. But, it's also somewhat irrelevant. It's not her response, but your response which matters. You won't always get kudos for doing the right thing. Take some pride in that you, and your government, did the right thing; despite some individuals.

FlexGunship

Hardly! It's not her money. It's money that was taken forcibly from the populous and given to her for the purpose of meeting baseline nutrition... so that she wouldn't starve to death. Welfare (and food stamps) are not supposed to be a luxury.

In my mind, if you don't have enough food to buy bread and milk, then you CERTAINLY don't have enough money to buy Red Bull. Take a second to really process those events:

1. Woman is hungry: "please, help me, I'm out of work and I'm starving!"
2. Government agrees to help: "Okay, fine, these people have some extra cash, we'll grab it from them so you don't die of starvation"
3. Government gives the money to the woman: "here you are ma'am, it took the threat of incarceration, but we took money from other people so that you could eat"
4. Woman gets food stamps: "Hmm, food stamps? So I can only buy food with these?" "Well, yeah, obviously... you said you were starving."
5. Woman is incredibly ungrateful for the help: "what do you mean I can't buy sugar lumps, chocolate lollipops, and energy drinks with my food stamps?"

I cannot possibly sympathize with your argument.

MarcoD

Ah well, it's social-democrat versus libertarian, so I don't think we can possibly agree. I will give you and Paul the kudos for believing that you are doing the right thing. Looks decent to me.

Woopy

If you can't afford milk and bread, you are not looking for a job. I refuse to believe that someone couldn't afford to eat in this country. I know a girl who came here from vietnam with virtually no money at age 19 (now is 24) and has had to forge her entire destiny without the help of the government, and is managing to get through school (as an electrical engineer no less) and is able to atleast feed herself, have a room that she can live in, and pay for her own education (which I should mention cost a lot more for an international student than a U.S. citizen). With that in mind, I see no reason why someone can't have a full time job. The problem is people won't do what it takes to survive if they know the government will bail them out. If they were thrown onto the streets with nothing but what they carry on their back (like my friend), things would be a lot different.

I should also mention my friend managed to find menial jobs even though she didn't even speak english hardly at all when coming here, she'd do any job no matter what it was no matter the pay, even going as far as to make $3/hr working at vietnamese restaurants as a dishwasher without knowing about minimum wage laws and being grateful to god for even having a wage of $3/hr.

Rugged individualism, man.

FlexGunship

Well, I'm not voting for Ron Paul, anyway. I was just playing devil's advocate. Libertarianism is the CORRECT ideology, but it's not practical; the question is whether you should restart from a libertarian society and move away from it again (i.e. start at 1776 in the U.S. and head to the present).

I was trying to point out the absurdity of claiming "it's her money, she can do what she wants with it." It's my money, and she may only use it to meet her base nutritional requirements so she doesn't die while trying to rejoin society.


Another strong argument for abolishing the minimum wage law. It basically amounts to discrimination against unskilled workers. My brother has Asperger's and would love to learn to work a cash register, or learn how to take inventory... but no one will hire him for minimum wage. When he offers to work for less... well... doesn't matter... it's illegal for him to take a job for less than minimum wage.

It's a law that discriminates against unskilled workers and it's grossly outdated.

EDIT: It's amazing to me that people who promote a higher minimum wage will not even take a breath before that go on to complain about the unemployment rate.

Char. Limit

I'd hardly call an argument based on two unprovable anecdotes a "strong" argument. Is there any data that indicates that unemployment would go down (and that poverty wouldn't rise sharply) from abolishing the minimum wage?

Evo

Yeah, most would die. You seem to have forgotten the elderly and those too ill to work.

Ryan_m_b

Not to mention the millions who have been made unemployed thanks to the current economic climate even though they are *highly* qualified. In the UK at the moment there are only several hundred thousand jobs (registered at jobcentreplus, the government employment organisation) yet millions of unemployed people. To assume that being poor or unemployed is the fault of the poor/unemployed individual is fallacious, to not think it was a virtue for society to take care of these people is callous.

Woopy

Call me a darwinist, but the weak and unfit would die.

FlexGunship

Uh. Illegal immigrants that have jobs exist? At least in the U.S. its a problem. When someone has a $3/hr job to fill (i.e. sweeping floors) it's illegal to hire a U.S. citizen to do it so they're forced to (a) hire someone illegally, (b) lose money, or (c) just leave the position empty.

Generally goods and services are priced based on value. The only exception is price-fixing (when the price of a good or service is artificially raised or lowered). What's the point of hiring someone at $7/hr to do a job that is only valued at $3/hr?

I'm always surprised when I see someone who has not made the connection between sub-minimum wage jobs and illegals working in the U.S. There is a 1:1 correlation.

EDIT: My housekeeper is grateful for the $5/hr I pay her. VERY grateful. I told her that's how much I would pay her to clean, and she was happy to accept it. It's totally mind-blitheringly illegal... but we both agreed to the terms. Both of us. She wanted work. I was hiring. I told her ahead of time. She knew ahead of time. There was no lying. I didn't deceive her. She's happy for the extra money. She likes having the extra money. She uses it to buy food and clothes and to participate in the economy.

But, yes, it's illegal.

DOUBLE EDIT: To be clear, I would not have hired ANYONE at minimum wage. The job wouldn't exist. This is a real-life example of job creation by avoiding the minimum wage. I have personally created a job. I'm a job creator. If I was forced to pay her $8/hr, I would have to fire her and should wouldn't get any money from me at all.

FlexGunship

::FACEPALM::

Okay, not all libertarians feel that way! Please don't lump libertarian ideology with anarchism. They are fundamentally different.

Ryan_m_b

Clearly you have no understanding of evolution, especially the significance of social cooperation in the success of species survival. This is becoming off topic, I suggest the topic returns to a discussion of Ron Paul's candidacy only.

turbo

That would be nice.

FlexGunship

And return to OP:

At this point in the race, I'd like to see Jon Huntsman win the candidacy; I'll be voting for him. I think it would be important for him to pick a more "fringe" running-mate, though. Ron Paul would be an interesting Vice President, don't you think? You'd have two sides of the same ideological coin, a social and economic moderate Republican president and a libertarian vice president.

If nothing else, they'd generate a lot of ideas as a team.

Char. Limit

Before we get back on topic, let me just say I'm glad that you find this guy as loopy as I do.

Woopy

Ideally I'm an anarchist, so I just do libertarian because it's the smallest government